Investment firm CVC DIF has acquired German colocation provider Firstcolo.

Announced this week, CVC DIF, the infrastructure business of CVC, has agreed to acquire a “significant majority stake” in Firstcolo Holding GmbH, from Cube Infrastructure Managers.

The investment will be made through DIF Value Add IV and is expected to close by the end of September 2026. Full terms of the deal haven’t been shared.

Firstcolo will continue to be led by its founder-led management team, including CEO and co-founder Jerome Evans, COO and co-founder Nicolaj Kamensek, and CFO Dennis Bergfeld.

Willem Jansonius, managing partner at CVC DIF and co-head of the DIF Value Add strategy, said: "Firstcolo represents a rare opportunity to invest in a high-quality, founder-led colocation platform in an attractive and supply-constrained FLAPD data center market. The company combines a resilient, cash-generative existing business with a substantially de-risked expansion project and a differentiated service offering for enterprise customers. We look forward to working with Jerome, Nicolaj and the wider Firstcolo team to deliver FRA7 and support the company's development into the leading German colocation platform."

Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Frankfurt, Firstcolo provides colocation, dedicated cloud hardware, cloud, connectivity and managed services to more than 350 enterprise customers. Mid-market infrastructure investor Cube Infrastructure Managers acquired the firm in 2022.

Firstcolo operates two facilities in Frankfurt that are reportedly near-fully-utilized. Its Werkhaus facility totals 12,915 sq ft (1,200 sqm) capacity for 1,000 racks, and the AOC Data Center in the Accent Office Center has a capacity of around 390 racks.

The company is also developing a new data center, FRA7, in the Rosbach area of Frankfurt. The 24MW facility will total 124,360 sq ft (11,555 sqm) and is due live in early 2027.

Firstcolo CEO Evans said the deal marks an “important new chapter” for the company and will help it execute its long-term growth strategy.

“FRA7 is more than a single data center development: it is the first building block of a scalable, high-performance infrastructure platform designed to support the next generation of AI, cloud and enterprise workloads in Germany,” he said. “Together with CVC DIF, we intend to build on our strong foundation, expand our presence in the Frankfurt region and develop further high-performance data centers in attractive German markets over the coming years."

Founded in 2005, Netherlands-based CVC DIF (formerly DIF Capital Partners) has €18 billion ($20.9bn) of infrastructure assets under management in energy transition, transport, utilities, and digitalization. The company also owns data center companies Tonaquint in the US and Adam in Spain, as well as several fiber, tower, and telecoms firms.

CVC DIF, alongside Northlead and Landmark Dividend, sold a data center portfolio in the US to Igneo earlier this year.