Russian market has seen a 21% growth in revenues in 2016, setting the tone for further national and international investment across the sector.
Russia’s third largest operating commercial data centre operator IXcellerate has gained some heavy investment power from Goldman Sachs through a $15m convertible loan agreement.
The total sum of funding that IXcellerate has attracted in international markets since its inception for its Russian project amounts now to $35m.
By investing in IXcellerate, registered as a UK business, Goldman Sachs has become the third investor in the company, together with IFC and Sumitomo Corporation.
Goldman Sachs will hold approximately 25% of shares following conversion. The deal was signed by IXcellerate headquartered in Great Britain.
The funding will be used to expand the IXcellerate Moscow One Datacentre located in northern Moscow.
Two new data halls will be built in the coming months to collocate 1100 and 350 racks respectively. Approximately 20% of this capacity is already reserved by existing and potential customers.
The company said in a statement that following the fresh investment, its business strategy will continue to be based on the modular construction concept, enabling a customised “data centre within data centre” solution to large enterprises.
Once both data halls are commissioned, IXcellerate will be the third largest player among all operating commercial data centres in Russia in terms of total rack capacity.
The IXcellerate Moscow One campus will be able to collocate 2185 racks following the projected expansion.
The operator’s current list of clients includes Thomson Reuters, Orange Business Services, RETN, Telia, NTT Communications, Evroset, Softline, Onlanta, FORS Distribution, as well as other global corporations, undisclosed due to confidentiality policies.
Guy Willner, CEO and co-founder of IXcellerate: “Since the launch of our data centre in Russia, we have been consistently moving towards becoming one of the market leaders.
“Our main competitive advantages are infrastructure quality and full transparency of our business as well as the highest level of customer service. In the nearest future, we are planning to expand further and rely not only on organic market growth and new investments, but also considering merge & acquisition opportunities”.
Goldman Sachs’ move comes as the Russian commercial data centre is predicted to have generated revenues of $250m during 2016, according to iKS-Consulting.
This represents a growth of 21% over 2015 and 11% in foreign currency terms.
Dmitry Bederdinov, iKS-Consulting, said: “New significant international investments will have a positive impact on the growth of the Russian commercial data centre market.
“Large and resilient data centres with enough resources to come up with competitive bids will have the advantage in terms of customer service and overall sustainability.”
Further information can be found in data-economy.com