Vantage Data Centers Acquired By Investors Looking To Expand

Vantage Data Centers was acquired this month by an investment consortium looking to expand the wholesales data center services provider.

Three investors – Digital Bridge Holdings, Public Sector Pension Investment Board, and TIAA Investments – purchased Vantage Data Centers in a move that could lead to further expansion, said Joe Goldsmith, chief revenue officer for the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company.

With the deal, terms of which were not disclosed, the investors gain control of one of the country's largest regional data wholesale center data center services providers, with a total capacity of 51 megawatts of IT load in the city of Santa Clara, Goldsmith told CRN.

[Related: Silicon Valley: One Earthquake Away From IT Disaster?]

Vantage Data Centers also has a 6-megawatt data center in Quincy, Wash. It is also in the process of extending its existing campus with an additional 24 megawatts of capacity and is building a new 69-megawatt campus in Santa Clara.

Vantage Data Centers was founded about seven years ago when its existing investor, Silver Lake, invested in starting the company from the ground-up. "It was very unusual for Silver Lake to build a new company," Goldsmith said. "They usually buy existing companies."

Santa Clara, Calif. real estate is among the most expensive in a seismically active part of the country. But Goldsmith said it was the ideal location to build a data center business.

"We focus on delivery of infrastructure where customers want it to be," he said. "Many of our customers are cloud service providers and application service providers. Many are serving customers in Northern California, and many offer applications and services that can't be delivered remotely."

The company's data centers are built to exceed the seismic importance factor of 1.5, which is a measure of structural integrity, he said.

The new investors bring Vantage Data Centers an opportunity to expand into new markets, Goldsmith said.

"We are looking at where customers want us to expand, and where we can expand with them," he said. "The focus is on where do our customers want us to go with them."

Goldsmith would not rule out expanding either by building from the ground up in a new area or acquiring an existing data center campus.

"Building from the ground-up means starting new in a market, including identifying an existing shell and core or land where we need to apply for the right permits to develop a data center," he said.

"A merger or acquisition would give us the ability to move into a market much more quickly. But, in either scenario, our main focus is on the domestic market. And our current investment infrastructure gives us the power to expand."