London based Virtus Data Centres has secured £50 million in funding from Deutsche Bank to pay for an expansion. The firm did not say if it will be building new facilities, or expanding through mergers and acquisitions of other data center companies.

Virtus has previously been funded by Brockton Capital which invested in the data center company in October 2011 through its second fund (Brockton Capital Fund II L.P.) and expects to invest up to £100m in the hosting company over the next five years. Brockton said it will continue to support the operator.

Challenging debt markets
“The additional funding will provide a significant platform for accelerated business growth,” said Virtus chief financial officer Daryl Seaton. “The debt markets remain challenging, particularly for capital intensive businesses, but this arrangement demonstrates that funding is available for the right companies. With the continued support from Brockton Capital, we look forward to expanding our facilities and product portfolio further.”

In April Virtus expanded its portfolio of services by offering Microsoft Azure for its customers in addition to AWS (Amazon Web Services) over Level 3’s network from its facilities.

Virtus’s London1 facility located in Enfield opened in Q1 2011 and its second facility - London2 – is located in Hayes. Virtus has added the option to connect to AWS via Level 3’s network a month previously.

Virtus’s CEO Neil Cresswell described the addition of Microsoft Azure as being one option that will sit alongside a broad selection of existing cloud providers on its Virtus Hybrid Cloud Access Hub which includes providers such as: AWS, ERA, Inatech, OryxAlign, L3C, Daisy, Coreix, C4L, ServerSpace and Exponential-E.

“The Virtus Hybrid Cloud Access Hub can be accessed through the Virtus Marketplace and provides customers in our data centers with access to a broad ecosystem of highly scalable public and private cloud service providers,” Cresswell said.