DataBank bulks up Edgepresence with $30M investment
Colocation, connectivity, and managed services provider DataBank announced its $30M strategic investment in EdgePresence, an owner and operator of multi-tenant, modular data centers, providing space, power, bandwidth, and interconnection across key U.S. markets.
EdgePresence’s Edge Data Centers (EDCs) are modular, purpose-built data centers, comprehensively and compactly designed to include critical power, monitoring, physical security, and cooling. Located at targeted locations at the base of cell towers, key real estate, and enterprise campus locations, these EDCs will enable DataBank to colocate its customer workloads at the “far edge” to further reduce latency and improve performance for select applications. This modular capability complements and expands DataBank’s edge strategy and comes just weeks after it announced a tripling of its footprint with the acquisition of Zayo Group’s zColo data centers.
“With the continued expansion of 5G and internet infrastructure, we are seeing the need for geographic-specific colocation solutions,” says Raul K. Martynek, DataBank’s CEO. “EdgePresence’s modular installations will allow DataBank to deploy these targeted solutions for specific applications and use cases where traditional data center options are not optimal. The combination of DataBank’s expanded footprint with zColo facilities and EdgePresence modular solutions will allow us to offer customers almost unlimited geographic flexibility for their IT infrastructure.”
The announcement is yet another example of the convergence of digital infrastructure and the ecosystem benefits of DataBank’s lead investor Digital Colony. EdgePresence has partnered with fellow Digital Colony portfolio company Vertical Bridge, the largest private owner and operator of communications infrastructure and locations in the United States. EdgePresence is currently deploying at over a dozen Vertical Bridge locations. The combination of Vertical Bridge, DataBank, and EdgePresence assets will accelerate the deployment of novel infrastructure solutions for cloud, content, and technology customers.
“EdgePresence has been establishing an important beachhead at the ‘far edge’ since 2018,” says Doug Recker, the company’s founder, and president. “By joining forces with DataBank, we’ll act as a force multiplier for their edge data center strategy, helping to bring data centers closer to the data pools being created by users, enabling next-generation, data-localization strategies and applications for 5G and IoT.”
EdgePresence will continue to be run by Recker and his existing team, and collaborate with DataBank’s leadership team to expand its modular data center solutions.
Analyst Perspective
DataBank made a strategic investment of $30m in micro data center provider EdgePresence. DataBank recently acquired the zColo data centre portfolio and now has an expanded footprint across primary and secondary edge markets. Working with micro data centers will give DataBank options and capabilities for reaching out to underserved markets or areas and getting closer to end users in highly dense intra-metro regions where latency requirements are extremely high. In short, it will use the micro data center option wherever traditional data centers are not viable or make economic sense. EdgePresence, founded in 2018, has live micro data center deployments up and running in partnership with American Tower and is also partnered with Vertical Bridge. Digital Colony backs both Vertical Bridge and DataBank. The partnerships and investment support are key because they give DataBank proximity to all the building blocks that make edge scenarios possible.
Phil Shih, Managing Director, Structure Research
Edge Computing Expo North America 2021
Article Topics
DartPoints | Databank | edge data center | EdgeMicro | EdgePresence | startup | Structure Research | Vapor IO | venture capital
Comments