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The i3D.net Story

A trusted partner for over 4,000 international customers and one of the fastest growing hosting companies in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500.

From startup to multinational

Since the company was founded, i3D.net has gone through many transitions. Our company started as a small internet service company, a startup, and grew to be the global managed hosting provider it is today. A true multinational and as of 2019 a member of the Ubisoft family. We are now active on 6 continents and still growing. This timeline depicts not only our highlights in the past, but it also gives an insight in the roadmap. 

History

Since the beginning of i3D.net, the company has reinvented itself many times. Staying ahead of customer demand. Getting new insights on market needs through close contact with its customers and by attracting new employees with specific knowledge. Opening new locations and services every year.

2018 - 2019: Opening office in USA and becoming a Ubisoft company

In 2018, i3D.net launched new innovative services and features in the Multi-cloud Scaling platform ONE™ and our revolutionary award winning Low-latency Anti-DDoS solution. i3D.net also opened an office in Pasadena, USA, to get closer to our American customers and more easily offer 24x7 support to all our customers. Our roadmap includes continuously expanding our global platform to keep ahead of market needs. That's why we are preparing new pops in Shanghai, Seattle and Buenos Aires. In November 2018, i3D.net and Ubisoft announced that Ubisoft was to acquire i3D.net, making i3D.net an autonomous entity for game hosting within the Ubisoft corporation. The acquisition by Ubisoft became effective as of March 1, 2019. 

2016 - 2017: Global expansion and moving into a new office

From 2016 on i3D.net layed the foundation to support the growth ambition of our customers further. By opening new locations in Dubai, Johannesburg, Hong Kong, New York, Chicago, Moscow and Singapore. i3D.net also expanded the staff with new colleagues with specialized knowledge and experience. The company moved the office to a much larger and more professional location in Capelle aan den IJssel to house the ongoing growth of employees.

2013 - 2015: Diversification of customers and global expansion

The customer base increased to the point that i3D.net became the biggest game server provider in the Benelux and the number of Enterprise customers doubled. Also the number of services i3D.net delivered to our customers grew. A good example is the growth in the number of game titles that publishers EA, ID Software and Square Enix trusted i3D.net to manage and host such as FIFA, Battlefield and Quake. In 2013 i3D.net ranked 30th in Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 and lands an 181st position in the Deloitte’s Technology fast 500 EMEA as one of the fastest growing tech companies. We also ranked 3rd in the FD-gazellen awards for the Dutch regions Zuid-Holland and Zeeland. Since 2014 we have our own dark fibers running towards Amsterdam allowing us to scale up to an additional 400 Gbit capacity without the interference of an external supplier. In 2015 our game publisher dashboard underwent a big change to provide the game publishers with the latest technology and data for new hosted titles like Star Wars Battlefront, Need for Speed 16 and Tom Clancy's The Division. The total amount of physical servers reached 11,000 spread across 16 locations worldwide, with new locations in São Paulo, Heerlen and Dallas.

2009 - 2012: Building an own data center

The game industry market desired low latency, high performance and fast delivery times. In this periode i3D.net invested in becoming this specialized high performance managed hosting provider. Also because of the company growth, i3D.net investigated the possibilities to open its own data center. The collaboration with data center specialist, Richard Boogaard, resulted in opening Smartdc in the Van Nelle Factory in Rotterdam, The Netherlands in 2009. Smartdc is now one of the largest data centers in the region of Rotterdam. From this time on, i3D.net was stated in the Deloitte’s Technology Fast 50 for a couple of years in row. i3D.net won the FD-gazellen award for the regions Zuid-Holland and Zeeland in The Netherlands in 2012. Besides this, Stijn started, together with his American business partner, MyinternetServices, the company Gameblocks. Gameblocks hired a lot of brilliant programmers from the terminated game publisher THQ to make innovative software like the anti-cheat software FairFight. FairFight has become the standard anti-cheat software in online AAA games. 

2004 - 2008: Launched game hosting solutions to publishers

i3D.net grew in customer and employee numbers and opened an office in the center of Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Back then, i3D.net Offered servers for webhosting, mail services and gaming. i3D.net also started to offer game servers to a wider audience from its new website. These game servers became quite popular because of their performance. In 2004 our Chief Technical Officer, Stefan Ideler, started at i3D.net. He was soon followed by Rick Sloot, who was one of the largest customers of i3D.net in that time. Rick became our current Chief of Operations. In 2005, i3D.net was the biggest game server provider in the Benelux. The big game publishers like EA, noticed the success of the company and turned to i3D.net for the hosting of their game titels. In this period i3D.net opened new data center locations in Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt, Tokyo, Sydney and Los Angeles.

2002 - 2003: The start of i3D.net

In 2002 Stijn Koster, eighteen and still a student at the time, started i3D.net. The abbreviation stood for Innovative Information Internet Services. The company offered web design, content management systems and hosting for companies. During the first two years, Stijn divided his time between his studies and the company. 

Management Team

The management team of i3D.net, under de guidance of founder and Managing Director, Stijn Koster, is responsible for i3D.net's overall business and affairs.

Stijn Koster Managing Director
Stefan Ideler CTO
Rick Sloot COO
Ieske Schilperoord CFO
Bart Kemps CCO

Get in touch

Would you like to get to know more about our company and our services? Feel free to contact us with your inquiries. 

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