Ascenty Secures $190M to Fund Data Center Construction in Latin America

Data center provider Ascenty announced that it has secured $190 million in financing to help fund the building of five new data centers in one of the most under-served regions in the world—Latin America—and to refinance existing debt.

CEO Chris Torto said in a statement that he sees securing the five-year syndicated loan from ING, Itaú BBA, and two international banking institutions as a vote of confidence.

“We decided to increase our debt financing to allow us to accelerate the company’s expansion into new markets. In 2017, we will launch five new data centers, all of which are under construction. This new debt financing provides proof of last year’s great results as well as renewed commitment from our banking partners for Ascenty’s rapid expansion”, he said in a statement.

Later in the day, Ascenty also reported on its website that the first unit in its 43,000-square foot site in Brazil’s capital city of São Paulo was successfully commissioned and has been operational since March 1. Called São Paulo 1, it is the company’s fifth Brazilian operation. The other four Brazilian data centers reside in Campinas, Jundiaí, Hortolândia and metropolitan Fortaleza.

According to Roberto Rio Branco, Ascenty's commercial, marketing and institutional director, the company is doing all it can to fill a data center void in the region.

"We built this world-class data center to meet the needs of the market. Some of the country's leading companies are headquartered in the region. These clients can now host their data on a site near their headquarters. With our fiber optic network connecting our data centers and leading telecom carriers, we deliver complete colocation, cloud, connectivity and managed services solutions to our customers. "

Interestingly, while Brazil has a total of 24 metropolitan areas with populations that exceed 1 million, half of them lack multi-tenant data centers, according to 451 Research. In order to meet the demand, Ascenty is building a second facility in the capital, called São Paulo 2, now in the final stage of construction and scheduled to launch in April. This comes one day after Equinix announced the opening of its fifth data center in São Paulo.

News of  Ascenty's funding and commissioning of its São Paulo data center illustrate the company's rabid appetite for continued growth in the region and reasons behind its head-turning 75 percent net revenue boost last year and expectations for another 85 percent pop in revenue from the planned launch of several new data centers in 2017.

While Ascenty started out as a data center provider in Brazil, it is also building a new data center in Santiago, Chile, and is looking at other markets in Latin America like Mexico and Colombia.