Pornhub is owned by Aylo, the Montreal-founded company formerly called MindGeek. Aylo itself belongs to Ethical Capital Partners (ECP), a Canadian private equity firm that bought it in March 2023 for $400 million, a price first confirmed in court in 2025, according to The Logic.
ECP’s majority owner is its managing partner, Fady Mansour. Since its 2007 launch, Pornhub has changed owners 3 times.
In this article, we’ll break down who owns Pornhub and Aylo, the full ownership history, revenue estimates, Aylo’s brands and staff, plus its fines, lawsuits and the age-verification rules reshaping where Pornhub is available.
Top Pornhub Ownership Statistics
- Ethical Capital Partners bought MindGeek, now Aylo, for $400 million in March 2023, $125 million less than a 2021 offer the previous owners rejected.
- Before 2023, Bernd Bergmair owned more than 50% of MindGeek, its then CEO told Canadian MPs in 2021.
- MindGeek’s revenue was reported at $731 million in 2020; after Visa and Mastercard cut ties, investor materials projected about $455 million for 2022, even assuming card payments resumed.
- Aylo operates more than 100 porn streaming websites, according to the FTC.
- Aylo agreed in August 2026 to pay $120 million to settle two class actions over child sexual abuse material, without admitting liability; the deal still needs court approval.
- Aylo had 1,400+ employees in March 2024, about 400 fewer than in 2021.
- Pornhub is unavailable in 25 US states as of October 2026.
Who Owns Pornhub?
Aylo owns Pornhub, and Ethical Capital Partners owns 100% of Aylo’s shares, an ECP vice president told The Logic (2025). ECP’s majority owner is managing partner Fady Mansour; the firm has never named its investors or published its ownership split.
ECP announced the deal on March 16, 2023 and kept the price private at the time, according to its press release. The $400 million figure surfaced only in a 2025 California court hearing.
ECP says it was set up in 2022, though The Logic reports 2021. Its partners come from law, policing and cannabis rather than adult entertainment, according to BNN Bloomberg (2023).
Here’s a breakdown of Ethical Capital Partners’ leadership:
| Person | Role at ECP | Background |
|---|---|---|
| Fady Mansour | Founding and managing partner, majority owner | Criminal lawyer |
| Rocco Meliambro | Chair | Cannabis entrepreneur |
| Derek Ogden | Founding partner | Retired RCMP chief superintendent |
| Solomon Friedman | Founding partner, VP compliance | Not reported |
| Sarah Bain | Founding partner, vice-president | Not reported |
ECP renamed MindGeek as Aylo on August 17, 2023, calling it a fresh start, according to Ethical Capital Partners. The company says it was launched in 2004, counting from its predecessor Mansef.
Pornhub Ownership History
Pornhub launched on May 25, 2007 in Montreal as a site within Interhub, founded by web developer Matt Keezer, according to Wikipedia. It has changed hands 3 times since.
In March 2010, German entrepreneur Fabian Thylmann bought the Mansef and Interhub businesses and merged them into Manwin, according to Wikipedia. The deal is often put at an estimated $140 million, a figure that covered several sites, not just Pornhub (Wikipedia).
Thylmann then took on $362 million of debt in 2011, according to The Logic (2021). After his December 2012 extradition to Germany on suspicion of tax evasion, he sold out in October 2013.
Two different 2013 prices circulate. Thylmann’s own shares were thought to be worth around €73 million, according to The Local (2013). The whole company was bought for $300 million by Bernd Bergmair, Feras Antoon and David Tassillo, according to The Globe and Mail (2021). The first is one man’s stake; the second is the full deal.
Here’s a breakdown of Pornhub’s ownership timeline:
| Year | Owner or Event | Reported Value |
|---|---|---|
| 2004 | Mansef founded by Stephane Manos and Ouissam Youssef | Not reported |
| 2007 | Pornhub launched within Interhub (Matt Keezer) | Not reported |
| 2010 | Fabian Thylmann buys Mansef and Interhub, forms Manwin | ~$140 million (estimate) |
| 2011 | Manwin raises debt from investors | $362 million |
| 2013 | Bergmair, Antoon and Tassillo buy Manwin, rename it MindGeek | $300 million |
| 2021 | Owners reject Bruinen Investments offer | $525 million |
| 2022 | CEO Antoon and COO Tassillo resign, keep shares | – |
| 2023 | Ethical Capital Partners buys MindGeek, renames it Aylo | $400 million |
ECP’s price was about 1.33 times the 2013 buyout, but $125 million below the Bruinen offer that Antoon, Tassillo and Bergmair turned down in 2021, according to The Logic (our calculation).
Who Owned MindGeek Before Aylo?
Bernd Bergmair owned more than 50% of MindGeek. CEO Feras Antoon named him under questioning by Canada’s House of Commons ethics committee on February 5, 2021, and said MindGeek was headquartered in Luxembourg.
Antoon and COO David Tassillo were minority shareholders, according to The Globe and Mail. Both resigned as executives on June 21, 2022, but kept their shares, according to The Logic, and sold to ECP alongside Bergmair in 2023 (Wikipedia).
The owners were paid well. MindGeek S.à r.l. paid at least $11.4 million in dividends in 2020, even as its profit fell to $3.2 million from $30.8 million in 2019, according to Luxembourg filings reported by The Logic (2021). The same filings showed about $200 million owed to a Bergmair-linked company.
The group also carried a $370 million term loan at 11.9% interest in 2021, according to The Globe and Mail.
How Much Money Does Pornhub’s Owner Make?
MindGeek’s revenue was reported at $731 million in 2020, according to The Globe and Mail (2022). Aylo is private, so all revenue figures are estimates from filings, pitch decks or company statements.
Projections then fell. An investor pitch deck projected $574 million for 2021, a 21.5% drop (our calculation). Investor materials put 2022 at about $455 million, and only if Visa and Mastercard resumed processing, according to Semafor (2023).
Here’s a breakdown of reported MindGeek and Aylo revenue:
| Year | Revenue ($ million) | Type of Figure |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 460 | Company figure |
| 2020 | 731 | Reported figure |
| 2021 | 574 | Pitch-deck projection |
| 2022 | 455 | Investor projection, if card payments resumed |
Figures don’t all line up. One MP put 2020 revenue in “the $460-million range” during the 2021 hearing, and Wikipedia lists $460 million for 2021. Semafor compared the 2022 projection with the $460 million the company said it made in 2018.
The business was expected to stay profitable. Operating margins were projected at about 27% in 2021 and almost 30% in 2022, according to estimates MindGeek showed investors in 2021 and reported by Semafor.
Ads matter most. Advertising was “approximately 50%” of revenue, Antoon told MPs in 2021, and MindGeek made $213 million from advertising in 2018, according to a pitch deck seen by The Logic. For Pornhub today, “it’s 100 percent ads,” an Aylo executive told netzpolitik.org (2024).
One subsidiary files public accounts. Aylo Billing Ltd in Dublin, which resells memberships, grew revenue 28% to $307.4 million in 2020 from $240.73 million in 2019, according to the Irish Examiner (2025).
What Companies and Brands Does Aylo Own?
Aylo operates more than 100 pornographic streaming websites, including Pornhub, YouPorn, RedTube and Pornhub Premium, according to the FTC and Utah (2025). Its own brands page shows 17 main brands in 5 groups.
Here’s a breakdown of Aylo’s main brands:
| Category | Brands | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Premium paysites | Brazzers, Reality Kings, Digital Playground, Twistys, Mofos, Men.com, Reality Dudes, Sean Cody | 8 |
| Video sharing platforms | Pornhub, YouPorn, RedTube, Tube8 | 4 |
| Marketplaces | MyDirtyHobby, Uviu | 2 |
| Advertising networks | TrafficJunky, AdultForce | 2 |
| Gaming and apps | Nutaku | 1 |
The scale is large. Aylo says about 8,000 new videos are added to its platforms every day and that they stream more than 13 million hours of video daily, with over 65 petabytes of media stored, according to its corporate website.
Pornhub itself had about 3.4 billion visits in September 2026, according to Semrush estimates. Our Pornhub statistics break those 3.4 billion visits down by country, device and search.
Creators share in the ad money. Pornhub’s Model Program pays an average of about $0.69 per 1,000 views, or $690 per million, according to a Pornhub figure reported by LADbible (2024). That’s far below what YouTube pays per view, as how much Pornhub pays shows.
Where Is Aylo Based and How Many People Work There?
Aylo had 1,400+ employees in March 2024, according to Ethical Capital Partners. That’s about 400 fewer than the more than 1,800 that MindGeek reported in 2021 (our calculation).
Its operating headquarters is in Montreal, where 1,000 of those 1,800 staff worked in 2021, including around 400 engineers, and 800 more were in Europe, according to committee testimony. The parent entity is Aylo Holdings S.à r.l., formerly MindGeek S.à r.l., according to the US Justice Department.
Here’s a breakdown of reported Aylo and MindGeek headcount:
| Date | Employees | Source Type |
|---|---|---|
| February 2021 | 1,800+ | Company testimony |
| June 2022 | ~1,200 | Press report |
| March 2024 | 1,400+ | Company figure |
| Q1 2026 | ~1,118 | Third-party estimate |
About 20% of the workforce works full-time on trust and safety, ECP’s Solomon Friedman told CTV News (2024). Beyond Luxembourg, group entities are registered in Ireland, Cyprus and Curaçao, according to Wikipedia.
Pornhub Fines, Settlements and Lawsuits
The biggest known settlement is for $120 million. In August 2026, Aylo agreed to pay that sum to settle two 2021 class actions in California and Alabama over child sexual abuse material, according to 404 Media. The deal is subject to court approval, and Aylo admits no liability.
It starts with $25 million in 2026, followed by six annual installments. The class covers anyone who appeared as a minor in content on MindGeek sites between February 12, 2011 and December 6, 2024.
Here’s a breakdown of Aylo’s main fines, settlements and legal actions:
| Action | Date | Amount | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Child sexual abuse material class actions (US) | August 2026 | $120 million | Settled, pending approval |
| Billing class action (Aylo Billing) | July 2023 | $24 million in benefits | Settled |
| FTC and Utah consumer protection case | September 2025 | $15 million penalty, $5 million paid | Settled |
| US Justice Department, GirlsDoPorn proceeds | December 2023 | $1,844,952.83 | Deferred prosecution, 3-year monitor |
| Texas age-verification lawsuit | February 2024 | $1.6 million sought | Filed by state |
| Quebec class action | October 2026 | CAD 600 million sought | Authorized to proceed |
Together, the four US settlements add up to about $150.8 million paid or agreed, including $120 million still pending court approval and $24 million in billing-settlement benefits, not counting fees, suspended penalties or undisclosed settlements (our calculation).
The criminal case came in 2023. On December 21, 2023, Aylo admitted to receiving proceeds from the GirlsDoPorn sex-trafficking operation and entered a deferred prosecution agreement in Brooklyn, according to the US Justice Department. It agreed to pay $1,844,952.83 and accept an independent monitor for three years.
In the FTC and Utah case, $10 million of the $15 million penalty is suspended unless Aylo breaks the order (our calculation from FTC and Utah data). The regulators alleged that Aylo did not review flagged abuse content until it had at least 16 flags. These are allegations, not court findings.
Canada is also active. The Privacy Commissioner found in 2024 that about 70% of audited uploaders failed to provide proof of consent, according to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, and took Aylo to Federal Court in 2025. See how Canada’s approach compares with countries that ban porn outright in where porn is illegal.
The 2020 Crackdown and Content Moderation Stats
Pornhub removed more than 10 million videos from unverified uploaders in December 2020, shrinking its library from 13.5 million to 2.9 million, according to Tubefilter. That’s 78.5% of its content (our calculation).
The purge followed Nicholas Kristof’s New York Times column “The Children of Pornhub” on December 4, 2020, according to Wikipedia. Mastercard and Visa stopped their cards working on Pornhub on December 10, 2020, according to Wikipedia, and Visa cut off ad purchases through TrafficJunky in August 2022, according to Visa.
The library has since grown back to 5.2 million+ pieces of content, according to Ethical Capital Partners (March 2024). Only ID-verified users can upload, and since January 23, 2024, new co-performers must also be verified before content goes live.
Here’s a breakdown of company-reported moderation figures:
| Measure | Figure | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Content removed as potentially harmful | 653,465 | 2020 |
| Videos removed for copyright (DMCA) | 544,021 | 2020 |
| Uploads stopped before publishing by AI moderation | 106,841 | 2020 |
| Banned search terms | 36,000+ | March 2024 |
| Trusted Flagger organizations | 59 in 37 countries | March 2024 |
| Share of workforce on trust and safety | 20% | 2024 |
Reports to the US child-protection hotline have dropped. Aylo entities filed 2,596 CyberTipline reports in 2023, according to NCMEC, 80.4% fewer than MindGeek’s 13,229 in 2020, as reported by Vice (our calculation). Pornhub said its 2020 reports covered only 4,171 unique videos, according to DPL News.
Where Is Pornhub Unavailable?
Pornhub is unavailable in 25 of the 27 US states with age-verification laws as of October 2026, according to Gizmodo. That’s about 2.1 times the 12 states where it had pulled out by July 2024, per Scripps News (our calculation).
In most of those states, Aylo withdraws rather than check IDs. It says Pornhub lost about 80% of its traffic where ID-based checks apply, according to Paperjam. That’s a company claim.
Here’s a breakdown of major regulatory milestones for Pornhub’s owner:
| Date | Where | What Happened |
|---|---|---|
| December 20, 2023 | European Union | Pornhub designated a very large online platform despite reporting 33 million monthly EU users, below the 45 million threshold |
| June 4, 2025 | France | Aylo suspended Pornhub rather than comply with age-check rules |
| July 25, 2025 | United Kingdom | Online Safety Act age checks began |
| February 2, 2026 | United Kingdom | Aylo closed Pornhub to new UK users |
| March 26, 2026 | European Union | Commission preliminarily found Pornhub in breach of the Digital Services Act |
| May 2026 | Utah | Aylo sued the state over its age-verification law; case paused in October |
| September 23, 2026 | United Kingdom | Ofcom opened an investigation into Aylo’s age checks |
The UK shows the effect. Pornhub’s UK unique visitors fell 31% from July to August 2025, after age checks began, according to Similarweb estimates published by Ofcom. If Ofcom finds a breach, Aylo faces fines of up to £18 million or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue, whichever is greater (The Star). In the EU, the cap is 6% of worldwide turnover (IRIS Merlin).
In the US, Pornhub has blocked most of the porn ban states rather than run age checks.
Methodology
We reviewed 170 data points from 55 sources. Ownership, price and debt figures come from company press releases, Canadian parliamentary testimony, US Justice Department and FTC documents, and press reports of court hearings and Luxembourg and Irish company filings. Aylo is private and doesn’t publish group accounts, so revenue figures are estimates from filings, investor materials or company statements, and they differ by source.
Traffic, library, moderation and headcount figures are company-reported unless labeled otherwise; the 2026 headcount is a third-party estimate by Revelio Labs and visits are Semrush estimates. Lawsuit amounts are settlements or sums sought, and allegations are unproven unless admitted. Multiples, percentage changes, differences and totals are our own calculations.
Key Takeaways
Pornhub is owned by Aylo, which Ethical Capital Partners bought for $400 million in March 2023 from Bernd Bergmair, Feras Antoon and David Tassillo. It’s the third change of ownership since Pornhub launched in 2007.
The legal bill is large: a $120 million class-action settlement in 2026, pending court approval, followed a $5 million FTC and Utah payment in 2025 and a federal deferred prosecution agreement in 2023. Meanwhile, Pornhub has withdrawn from 25 US states rather than comply with age-verification laws.
FAQ
Who owns Pornhub now?
Aylo, formerly MindGeek, owns Pornhub. Aylo is 100% owned by Ethical Capital Partners, a Canadian private equity firm whose majority owner is managing partner Fady Mansour. ECP bought the company in March 2023 for $400 million.
Who owned Pornhub before Aylo?
From 2013 to 2023, MindGeek was owned by Bernd Bergmair, who held more than 50%, with executives Feras Antoon and David Tassillo. Before that, Fabian Thylmann’s Manwin owned it from 2010.
Is MindGeek the same as Aylo?
Yes. MindGeek was renamed Aylo on August 17, 2023, five months after Ethical Capital Partners bought it.
How much is Pornhub’s owner worth?
There’s no public valuation. ECP paid $400 million in 2023, and the owners rejected a $525 million offer in 2021. Reported revenue was $731 million in 2020, with projections near $455 million for 2022.
How much has Pornhub’s owner paid in fines and settlements?
About $150.8 million across its four main US cases, paid or agreed: $120 million (pending court approval) to settle the child sexual abuse class actions, $24 million in a billing settlement, $5 million to Utah and $1,844,952.83 to the US government.
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