Data centre start-up backed by Goldman Sachs and TPG raises S$450m

AirTrunk, a data centre start-up backed by Goldman Sachs and TPG Sixth Street Partners, has raised S$450m (€295m) in equity and debt to build its first hyper-scale data centre in Singapore.

The company said the fundraising would enable it to launch its expansion across Asia-Pacific.

The Australian-based company said today that its founder and CEO, Robin Khuda, and shareholders Goldman Sachs and TPG Sixth Street, injected additional equity capital alongside the fundraising.

Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs and Natixis underwrote the debt financing portion.

Khuda said AirTrunk was the first Australian operator to build a hyper-scale data centre in Singapore.

“Throughout the financing process, we received strong interest from global financial institutions in recognition of AirTrunk’s proven hyper-scale model backed by long-term customer commitments,” he said.

The state-of-the-art facility would be the largest neutral data centre in Singapore, with more than 60mw of IT load, and was specifically designed for hyper-scale cloud, content and enterprise customers, the company said.

AirTrunk’s Singapore facility, located in Loyang in Singapore’s east, will be developed in two stages. The first is expected to be ready by mid-2020 and will allow half of the planned 60mw capacity to be sold to customers.

AirTrunk is tapping into the rise in cloud computing as more companies move their IT away from in-house data centres to services run by the likes of Amazon Web Services and Alibaba Group Holding.

Founded in 2014, AirTrunk raised A$850m last year to expand its Melbourne and Sydney data centres. This came on the back of an A$400m private equity capital raise from Goldman Sachs and TPG Sixth Street via their special situations vehicles.