LightEdge To Acquire Connectria’s Data Centers, IBM, AWS Capabilities

Connectria is one of the world’s largest cloud hosting and managed service providers for IBM Power Systems as well as an AWS Premier Tier Partner.

Des Moines-based LightEdge is growing again through acquisitions, adding Connectria’s six data centers and deep partnerships with IBM and Amazon Web Services

The goal is to offer hybrid colocation and tailored multi-cloud solutions, according to a press release that announced the deal.

“The acquisition extends LightEdge’s colocation and private cloud offering into public cloud services, while bringing together two incredibly talented and diverse teams and two highly complementary product suites, geographies and customer bases,” said LightEdge CEO Jim Masterson. “We expect this acquisition to further enhance our customer experience, and to that end, our top priority is to continue providing high-level service to our existing and new customers, while seamlessly integrating the companies.”

This is expected to be the fourth acquisition by LightEdge since it was acquired by investment firm GI Partners in 2021.

Since then, LightEdge has made three acquisitions, added five data centers, and expanded its network capacity by a factor of 10, according to the company. It has also upgraded its cloud portfolio. Founded in 1996, LightEdge currently supports more than 1,300 clients and manages 12 data centers across eight U.S. markets.

“We are excited to support LightEdge’s continued growth, geographically, through additional product offerings, and by combining our incredible teams,” Xiao Tsai, director of GI Partners, said in a statement. “Connectria’s IBM and public cloud capabilities provide LightEdge with additional avenues for future growth.”

St. Louis-based Connectria is one of the world’s largest cloud hosting and managed service providers for IBM Power Systems as well as an AWS Premier Tier Partner.

In February Connectria unveiled the opening of two new low-latency data centers in Singapore that are expected to bring IBM Power Systems and AWS hybrid cloud architecture to Asia later in 2024.

Connectria is staffed with engineers that have provided an extensive portfolio of managed and professional services with more than 25 years of work designing and supporting critical IT infrastructure.

LightEdge said it expects to close the acquisition by the end of the month. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The company acquired a data center in Minneapolis earlier this year, NFINIT in April 2022 and Cavern Technologies in September 2021.

The 76,000-square-foot, 3.6-megawatt Minnesota facility is built tough enough to withstand 185-mile-an-hour winds. That gives tenants a 64-mile-per-hour buffer against the top Minnesota windspeed ever recorded, which was 121 miles per hour in Donaldson, Minn., in September 2011.

The space outside Minneapolis is spread across three private data center suites and has two utility feeds from two substations. Its disaster recovery is backed by 2N or N+1 Tier 3 concurrent maintainable configurations. LightEdge said the facility is meant for highly regulated customers in finance, insurance and health care.

In a statement unveiling the deal with LightEdge, Connectria CEO Amar Patel said LightEdge is a perfect fit for his company.

“Both LightEdge and Connectria have established themselves as successful, fast-growing innovators that put security first within their product sets,” he said. “Both companies are also known for their strong company cultures, employee engagement and empowerment, and close ties to customers and suppliers.”