Russian data center firm IXcellerate has completed a new round of financing to fund its expansion plans.

The London-headquartered company said this week it had raised $190 million in financing from existing and new investors including Mubadala Investment Company, SberInvest, and the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF). IXcellerate will use the proceeds of the new funding round to spearhead the expansion of its Moscow North and South campuses.

“As one of the largest carrier-neutral commercial data center operators in Russia, IXcellerate is enabling digitalization in Russia through unrivaled scalability and growth opportunities,” said Andrei Aksenov, IXcellerate’s chief executive officer. “With the help of this new funding, we aim to provide the type of facilities and services to our existing and future customers that are both ultra-powerful and sustainable in the long-term, while ensuring that our clients continue to benefit from our reliable engineering infrastructure, ESG compliant practices, and outstanding service levels.”

Founded in 2011 by Guy Willner, IXcellerate operates two campuses in Moscow: Moscow North currently offers three data centers and 32MW of capacity across a 30,000 sqm (323,000 sq ft) footprint; first launched in 2013, the campus can offer 54MW at full development. The newest building, Moscow Three (MOS3) is due to launch in Q1 2022; it will offer 25MW across 12,000 sqm (129,100 sq ft).

Moscow South is a new campus announced last year; the 34-acre site will reach 250MW at full build-out. The first phase is slated for commissioning this quarter; the first MOS5 building will have a total of 63MW of capacity across 5,100 racks.

“IXcellerate has a successful record in developing and managing state-of-the-art data centers in Russia. The company is well-positioned to continue growing as a leading colocation and data center operator,” said Abdulla Naser Almarzooqi, Deputy Head of Russia and CIS Investment Program at Mubadala. “Leading this investment round into IXcellerate aligns with Mubadala’s strategy to invest in the digital economy and the sectors that support it.”

Mubadala is the sovereign investment unit for the Abu Dhabi government. SberInvest is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Russian financial institution Sberbank, which is partially state-owned. RDIF is Russia's sovereign wealth fund, established in 2011 to make primarily local equity co-investments.

“What IXcellerate delivers for businesses is of crucial importance. Construction of such data towns ensures uninterrupted operations of companies along with on-demand computing power, helping them not to bother where to locate IT infrastructure,” said Andrey Shemetov, Sberbank senior vice-president, head of SberCIB.

Mikhail Kireev, senior vice president, RDIF, added: “Investment in IXcellerate is part of RDIF’s strategy aimed at supporting the development of digital infrastructure in Russia and will further enhance our portfolio of collocation and data centers.”

Willner has previously told DCD that "it is likely IXcellerate will open St. Petersburg at some point and also look east during 2022/23 as there are over a dozen cities ‎with a population over a million in Russia."