UK online retailer wants to be the next Amazon with a surprising acquisition

Online health and beauty retailer The Hut Group (THG) appears to be attempting to follow the path that Amazon carved with AWS, or is at least taking the first steps in that direction with the announcement of the acquisition of UK-based web giant UK2.

UK2 is a provider of various internet services including web hosting, domain registration, plus heavyweight server and cloud services.

THG says that the acquisition will provide it with ‘high performance infrastructure’ on a global scale, and that it intends to invest heavily in UK2, and support the company’s key brands including 100TB.

And of course THG will offer UK2’s products and services to its existing tech clients which include the likes of Nintendo, Unilever and Honda.

Growth plans

Matthew Moulding, founder and CEO of The Hut Group, commented: “This is a significant technology investment to support our growth plans and provide a world class proprietary e-commerce platform and infrastructure to increase capacity, speed and resilience for our global customer base.”

Moulding added that this was just the first step in further planned significant investment in the UK technology sphere, with 1,000 new tech jobs lined up for creation over the next three years.

UK2 itself has over 200 staff located not just in London, but across a further 25 locations worldwide. It was established back in 1998.

And if you’re curious about UK2’s web hosting chops, we recently reviewed the service which is under the brand UK2.net – and came away with a positive impression, for sure.