Pan-Indian expansion will provide Iron Mountain Data Center customers access to three rapidly growing Indian markets including the 2nd most active peering location in Mumbai
Iron Mountain Incorporated, the storage and information management services company, today announced that it has entered into an agreement to form a joint venture with Web Werks, one of India’s top colocation data center providers. Iron Mountain expects to invest $150 million over the next two years, and anticipates being the majority investor in the venture after the investment period. The first phase of the transaction is expected to close within the next 90 days subject to customary closing conditions.
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“Joining forces with the Iron Mountain Data Center team will further solidify Web Werk’s leadership position in the pan-India region and among the broader set of global customers”
Web Werks operates three Tier 3, carrier-neutral data centers, in Mumbai, Pune and Delhi NCR. This investment enables Web Werks to immediately expand its operations in its three existing markets and subsequently expand into Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. Iron Mountain Data Centers is making this investment to support its existing hyperscale, network, content and enterprise customers looking to expand and scale in the rapidly growing pan-India region.
With a combined footprint of 225,000 square feet, Web Werks houses 6 worldwide Points of Presence (POPs), provides 4 megawatts (MW) of capacity, supports 6,000+ servers and supports 850+ clients. Web Werks also provides access to a robust, neutral interconnection ecosystem of carrier, content and cloud providers including over 160 Internet Service Providers (ISP) and 6 Internet Exchanges. As market leaders in hyper-connected data centers, Web Werks supports a broad base of well-known brands including: Enterprises, Banking, Financial Services, Insurance (BFSI), and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) who require the ability to efficiently and effectively scale their businesses.
“This investment reflects Iron Mountain’s commitment to invest in high growth, good return global markets to continue to meet our customers’ requirements. The India data center market is projected to grow rapidly in the coming years and we are excited to be an early mover into a market where the demand is high and the supply is low,” stated Mark Kidd, Executive Vice President & General Manager, Iron Mountain Data Centers. “Web Werks has a highly respected and seasoned leadership team and we are delighted to not only support their continued growth and success, but also to provide our existing Iron Mountain data center customers access to this growing and thriving market.”
India is the second-largest telecommunications market in the world. According to a recent report by JLL, India’s Colocation data center market size is expected to grow from 375MW in H1 2020 to 1,078MW by 2025, registering a CAGR of 21%. According to the December 2020, Global Data Centre Colocation & Interconnection report by Structure Research (SR), the Asia Pacific region will account for half of the global colocation market by 2025 driven by large emerging markets like India. The SR report also recognizes Mumbai and Pune as key opportunity markets in India with combined projected MW of built-out critical IT load capacity growth to reach over 470MW by 2025. “India provides an important next step in expanding our Asia Pacific footprint,” stated Michael Goh, General Manager Asia Pacific at Iron Mountain Data Centers. “We have seen very strong regional demand from our global customers following the grand opening of our Singapore data center, SIN-1, in 2019.”
“Joining forces with the Iron Mountain Data Center team will further solidify Web Werk’s leadership position in the pan-India region and among the broader set of global customers,” stated Nikhil Rathi, CEO, Web Werks. “Web Werks and Iron Mountain Data Centers are fully committed and aligned to grow and scale in order to meet the digital transformation and interconnection needs of our customers. The Joint Venture is expected to be among the select few data center operators with assets across all major cities and also have both Hyperscale and dense interconnection expertise. We look forward to the collaboration and continued success.”
Deutsche Bank acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Web Werks on the fund raise. Khaitan & Co and EY acted as the exclusive advisors to Web Werks respectively.
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