Singapore-based Princeton Digital Group today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement for a new US$360 million equity investment led by Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan Board.
Existing investor Warburg Pincus also participated in this new round of fundraising.
Eyeing new countries
The initial 2017 round of fundraising by Warburg Pincus gave PDG a war chest of $500 million, which it used to establish a portfolio of 18 data centers over the last three years, across Singapore, China, Indonesia, and India.
As we reported previously, PDG grew rapidly using a strategy consisting of outright acquisitions, telecommunication carve-outs, and greenfield builds. It is focused on serving hyperscalers, Internet and cloud companies as they expand across the region.
“We are delighted to have Ontario Teachers’ as an investor in PDG. Their track record of long-term investments combined with deep data center experience makes them a great partner as we continue to scale our business. We are also heartened by the continued trust and confidence placed by Warburg Pincus in PDG,” said Rangu Salgame, co-founder, chairman, and CEO of PDG. in a media statement.
In a call with DCD, Salgame said the new capital adds depth to PDG’s overall ability to execute: "We have the structure to source other types of capital, including debt and project financing. This equity round further increases our financing capacity significantly. We are now even better positioned to scale aggressively. Essentially, a billion dollars for our growth strategy."
Salgame says PDG will leverage the additional capital to deepen its growth in the markets it is currently in, as well as to grow into new countries. “A large part of our investment decisions is led by what we hear from our customers, what our customers want us to do, macroeconomic trends and potential is for data centers,” he explained of the latter.
PDG will be pursuing growth in “a couple” of the developed markets in the Asia Pacific, and “some” of the larger emerging countries here. Salgame had previously mentioned locations such as South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and Malaysia.
Salgame noted that a large part of the initial $500 million has already been deployed, with some earmarked to be spent in the coming year. He noted that 9 out of the 18 projects are operational, while a tenth, PDG's 40MW Fengxian facility in Shanghai, China, is scheduled to go into service by December.
“A year ago, we barely existed," he said. "Today, we have very large data centers, and some of the largest Internet companies have signed up with us for capacity. That gives us the confidence that customers can trust us… the investors we bring in [also] demonstrate to our customers that we have what it takes.”
