Teraco Data Environments is a carrier-, cloud- and vendor-neutral

data centre A data center is a building, a dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. Since IT operations are crucial for business ...

provider founded by Tim Parsonson and Lex van Wyk in 2008. On 1 August 2022,

Digital Realty Digital Realty is a real estate investment trust that owns, operates and invests in carrier-neutral data centers across the world. The company offers data center, colocation, and interconnection services. As of June 2023, Digital Realty ha ...

announced that it had completed the purchase of a majority stake in Teraco, previously controlled by

Berkshire Partners Berkshire Partners LLC is an American private equity firm based in Boston. It has invested in over 100 middle market companies since 1986 through nine investment funds with aggregate capital commitments of more than $16 billion. Berkshire has de ...

Permira Permira Holdings Limited is a British global investment firm specialised in buyouts, growth funds, equity funds, and credit funds. Founded in 1985 as part of Schroders, it became independent in 1996. Operating as Permira since 2001, the company ...

and a group of investors.

Overview

As the local telecommunications market began to deregulate, Teraco's founders recognised an opportunity for a truly vendor-neutral data centre offering in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. Teraco is majority-owned by Digital Realty (NYSE: DLR) and a consortium of private equity investors, including Berkshire Partners LLC and

Data centres

Teraco built Africa's largest data centre in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

. In 2012, the company created NAPAfrica, a fully funded non-profit neutral Internet eXchange Point (IXP). Teraco has additional data centres in

Durban Durban ( ; , from meaning "bay, lagoon") is the third-most populous city in South Africa, after Johannesburg and Cape Town, and the largest city in the Provinces of South Africa, province of KwaZulu-Natal. Situated on the east coast of South ...

and

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

Peering by NAPAfrica

Xneelo, South Africa's web hosting company, partnered with this company. Telkom peered with NAPAfrica through its Openserve wholesale and network division in 2016. Clients will be able to use the Microsoft service through this company. The telecom operator, Angola Cables, peered with this company in 2017.

Accomplishments and funding

After completing an

Environmental Impact Assessment Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is the assessment of the environmental impact, environmental consequences of a plan, policy, program, or actual projects prior to the decision to move forward with the proposed action. In this context, the te ...

, Teraco was granted permission to store 210,000 litres of diesel on site. 2011: The company received R158 million in Series C financing. 2013: A R200 million medium-term funding facility was provided from Absa's corporate and investment banking division. 2014: Teraco is acquired by

in first African investment. 2015: The company acquired R400 million in funding. 2016: Liquid Telecom invested $3.5 million in a new satellite hub. 2017:

Barclays Africa Group Absa Group Limited, commonly known and stylized simply as absa (formerly the Amalgamated Banks of South Africa (ABSA) until 2005 and Barclays Africa Group Limited until 2018), is a multinational banking and financial services conglomerate ba ...

funded R1.2 billion ($90 million) for Teraco Data Environments. 2022:

acquires 55% stake in Teraco Data Environments

References

{{Witwatersrand companies Companies based in Johannesburg Information technology companies of South Africa 2022 mergers and acquisitions Permira companies