Cologix Raises $255M in Debt for Data Center Expansion

Data center service provider Cologix has secured $255 million in debt funding to pay for data center construction and acquisition. The company already has extensive footprint in North America but plans to continue data center investment.

Many institutional investors have become more knowledgeable about the data center provider market in recent years, and data center investment has become more commonplace among traditional debt and private-equity financiers than it has been in the past. It has become relatively easy to raise money for a provider with an existing customer base, positive cash flow, and an executive team with a proven track record in the market.

Denver-based Cologix has 21 data centers in eight second-tier markets in the US and Canada, such as Dallas, Columbus, Toronto, and Montreal, among others. The company emphasizes interconnection as a major part of its offering, competing with data center providers like Equinix, Telx (soon to be part of Digital Realty), CenturyLink, and numerous smaller firms.

The company expands by building new data centers and buying other data center providers. In March, for example, it opened its third data center in a Minneapolis carrier hotel. Last year it bought a company called Colo5 to expand in Florida and an Ohio provider DataCenter.BZ to expand in the Columbus market.

RBC Capital Markets, TD Securities, and CIT were joint lead arrangers on its expanded credit facilities, announced Tuesday. Other investors were Scotiabank, ING, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Raymond James and others.

“This financing augments Cologix’s robust balance sheet and cash flows to provide capital for further organic and inorganic opportunities driving our growth,” Cologix CFO Brian Cox said in a statement.