DartPoints, an owner and operator of edge colocation data centers backed by Astra Capital Management, today announced an agreement to acquire Immedion, a colocation, cloud, and managed services provider from Comporium Communications. Specifically, Immedion owns eight data centers in four states, including South Carolina (4 data centers), North Carolina (1 data center), Ohio (2 data centers), and Indiana (1 data center).
The acquisition of Immedion will increase DartPoints’ footprint from four data centers to twelve, across six states in the U.S. In terms of timing, the acquisition will close in the second quarter of 2021.
DartPoints – Strategy
DartPoints suggests that traditional data centers are designed to provide cost-efficient access to space and power to store and process data. However, these facilities are optimized only to serve the most populated cities.
Whereas DartPoints is designing edge colocation data centers for local performance. Indeed, these facilities provide access to a large number of carriers and host an ecosystem. In these edge facilities, content, cloud providers, e-commerce, and population centers all congregate.
DartPoints business model allows for storage and processing to occur closer to users, beyond the largest Tier 1 cities. In turn, this enables faster and more predictable real-time interactions.
Transaction Rationale – DartPoints and Immedion
DartPoints’ agreement to acquire Immedion showcases the company’s desire to bring edge colocation and carrier-neutral interconnection deeper into regional Tier 2 and Tier 3 U.S. markets. Indeed, these carrier-neutral interconnection points improve access to content, cloud, applications, and other networks for DartPoints’ customers.
By combining with Immedion, DartPoints will continue to improve its interconnection offering for its customers. For example, Immedion’s network provider customers include Cogent Communications, Lumen Technologies, AT&T, and Zayo Group. Additionally, the company will allow for the migration of mission-critical workloads closer to end users.
Overall, DartPoints is one of the leaders in the edge data center sector, which also includes companies like EdgePresence (owned by DataBank and Colony Capital), EdgeMicro, Vapor IO (owned by Crown Castle) and Compass Data Centers’ BitBox platform.
DartPoints – Financial Sponsor – Astra Capital Management
In May 2020, DartPoints received equity funding from Astra Capital Management to support the company’s expansion across the U.S. Specifically, DartPoints is using Astra Capital’s equity to pursue a build and buy strategy, which Immedion is an example of. Additionally, in October 2020, with Astra’s backing, DartPoints agreed to acquire Metro Data Centers to expand its presence into Ohio.
Astra Capital Management is a Washington, D.C.-based, private equity firm with ~$500m of assets under management (AUM). The firm invests in growth businesses in the communications and technology services sectors with enterprise values up to $500m.
