Goldman Sachs and TPG have committed AUD400m (€289m) to Singapore-based AirTrunk to build data centres in Australia.
AirTrunk’s founder and chief financial officer, Robin Khuda, said the company had successfully completed capital raising from Goldman Sachs and a special situations vehicle of TPG, known as TSSP.
Equity would be used to develop two projects in Huntingwood and Derrimut in the west of Sydney and Melbourne, respectively, he said.
The facilities are expected to be fully operational in the third quarter of 2017, to provide customers with accessible and sustainable data services at a comparatively lower cost.
Khuda said the company had seen strong global interest in its fundraising programme.
Goldman Sachs and TSSP “stood out” for their level of support, industry knowledge and commitment to the AirTrunk business over the long term, he said.
AirTrunk has ambitions to become the leading data centre platform in Asia-Pacific. Last year, Khuda set out a vision for his company, saying he intended to invest AUD1.23bn in Australia over the next three to five years.
AirTrunk forecasts that the Asia Pacific market for data centre capacity will be worth US$12.5bn (€11.8bn) by 2019.
Khuda spoke of the prospects of the sector in Australia, supported by investment in digital technology by Australia’s four largest banks.
Australia has the second-largest cloud computing market in Asia. The advantage that Australia has over other Asian countries is the maturity of the data centre market, Khuda said.
