GI Partners, the private investment firm that owned Telx, one of the leading US colocation and interconnection service providers, has sold the company to Abry and Berkshire, both Boston-based investment firms.

The companies did not disclose the deal's terms, but in March of 2010 Telx filed for an initial public offering of about US$100m.

When asked whether the acquisition will bring any radical changes to Telx or to the market, Telx CEO Eric Shepcaro said: "Not at all. We'll continue our focus on interconnection and expanding our … data center portfolio and continue the focus on growing the business."

The most near-term expansion possibilities include new data centers in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City and Los Angeles – all interconnection hubs where the company already has presence, Shepcaro said. The company is also currently expanding its Clifton, New Jersey, footprint.

The company is also eying entry into new markets in the US and internationally, he added.

What the acquisition will bring Telx is the ability to speed its growth, since it now has access to very large funds and numerous data center businesses that are already part of the new owners'portfolios, particularly Abry's.

Data center companies Abry has stake in include the Canadian provider Q9 and US provider DataPipe.

"We had no conversations about merging with other Abry portfolio companies, however I do anticipate the ability to partner with some of them," Shepcaro said. Abry "having the depth and breadth of folks in the data center landscape was a real benefit for us – for partnerships and alliances at least."

GI Partners bought Telx in 2006 when it only had two data centers. Since the acquisition, the company's footprint grew to 15 locations.