Investment firm InfraRed Capital Partners has officially launched Nexspace, a new European data center platform.
The company last week announced the launch of the company, in partnership with unnamed 'local partners,' to target regional cities and towns across Germany, Austria, and Switzerland (aka the DACH region).
Nexspace’s first data center, a 2MW facility in Heidelberg, Germany, launched late last month.
With a focus on greenfield developments, InfraRed said the new company would develop energy-efficient data centers targeting regional corporate customers’ IT outsourcing programs.
Stephane Kofman, head of capital gain funds at InfraRed Capital Partners, said: “This investment reflects our continued belief in the essential role of data centers as a critical piece of infrastructure to facilitate the digitization of societies and economies worldwide."
He continued: "The regional small and mid-size corporate market and Edge opportunity is a fast-growing pocket of the sector, requiring scale-up capital to serve its ambitious needs. Germany is ideally suited to this strategy, thanks to its large but regionalized economy and substantial base of ‘Mittelstand’ enterprise customers.”
Located in the Heidelberg Innovation Park (HIP), Nexspace’s debut data center is a three-story facility offering capacity for 252 racks across 4,000 sqm (43,055 sq ft) – reportedly expandable to 8,000 sqm (86,110 sq ft). Ground was broken on the facility in November 2022.
Any plans for future Nexspace data centers haven’t been shared.
Nexspace is led by CEO Holger Sievers, who has previously held roles at IBM and IT services firms Arvato and Info AG.
Sievers said: “I am delighted to partner with InfraRed and our other shareholders to develop Nexspace as we strive to deliver on the exciting opportunities in this market. Having witnessed firsthand the evolution of the sector over the past three decades, I believe that the Edge opportunity represents the next stage of growth for the data center industry.”
InfraRed is part of SLC Management, the institutional alternatives and asset management business of Sun Life. The company manages more than $14 billion of equity capital.
