nLighten acquires Proximity Data Centres

Amsterdam, September 5th, 2023 – nLighten, a digital infrastructure platform of I Squared Capital, a leading global infrastructure investor, has completed the acquisition of Proximity Data Centres. Proximity is a leading regional platform in the UK with ten carrier-neutral edge data centers in Birmingham, Bridgend, Bristol, Chester, Leeds, Liverpool, Milton Keynes, Nottingham, Rugby and Swindon. RBC Capital Markets acted as financial adviser to nLighten on the transaction.“

Through organic growth and strategic acquisitions this year, nLighten has grown into a leading pan-European edge data center platform with 26 data centers, 53 megawatts of potential capacity and 130 employees,” said Mohamed El Gazzar, Senior Partner of I Squared Capital in London. “We are excited that nLighten has grown so quickly and established itself in the three largest data center markets in Europe: Germany, France and the UK.”

As a mature market with large economic regions that can benefit from more distributed data centers, the UK is a logical choice for nLighten’s expansion. Proximity’s network of high-performance data centers, strong reputation, agility, and impressive track record of entering local markets, position the company well for capturing the increasing shift to the edge across the country.

The regional distribution of Proximity’s data centers fit well within nLighten’s strategy of integrating data centers into regional markets and its high standards of sustainability align with nLighten, which aims to reduce the environmental footprints of its data centers. Proximity’s ten data centers currently source 100 percent of their electricity from renewables, and the company intends to maintain that sourcing, even at full capacity.

Given the evolving standards for data sovereignty in Europe, nLighten plans to keep the operational management of its data centers in the country and places great emphasis on their identification with the UK market.“

The acquisition of Proximity brings us a big step closer to our goal of creating the leading pan-European edge data center platform,” says Harro Beusker, co-founder and CEO of nLighten. “Proximity’s edge data centers are a great fit for our portfolio, and the existing management team, staff and assets lay a solid foundation for our ambitions in the UK."

“Being part of the nLighten group of data centers will accelerate the expansion of our portfolio of new products and services tailored for the edge computing market,” commented John Hall, Managing Director Colocation at Proximity. “We will also be able to provide a highly comprehensive solution to customers looking for a broad network of data centers across multiple European locations.”

About Proximity Data Centres

Proximity Data Centres operates a rapidly growing trusted network of regional carrier-neutral edge data centers across the UK. These allow clients to locate their data in key regional markets, close to the data end user. Proximity’s network of scalable edge facilities meets individual customer requirements, from specific regional data center services through to multi-site rollouts. By choosing Proximity’s network of edge data centers, enterprise, public cloud and content service provider organisations maximise competitive edge through reduced latency, enabling improved response times and reduced transit costs.

Built to Tier 3 industry standards and ISO 9001 Quality, 14001 Environmental and 27001 Security compliant, all data center grid electricity is sourced from 100 percent renewable providers. Full on-site support, transition and onboarding is provided to customers. For maximum convenience, a straightforward customer contracting model is provided with a single set of SLAs covering one or multiple sites, as required. Scope of services is tailored to suit regional demand.

About nLighten

nLighten is a digital infrastructure platform of I Squared Capital, a leading global infrastructure investor. We are developing innovative edge data centers distributed across European key economic hubs to provide best-in-class network access to regional, national and global enterprises, private users and the mobile workforce.

With the strategic distribution of its edge data centers, nLighten is working towards a pan-European presence in all major cities and providing customers and partners access to low latency and proximity to end users across Europe. The nLighten edge data centers are designed to meet the increasing demand for faster and more reliable data processing and storage, while also being mindful of environmental impacts.

nLighten was founded in 2021 by a core team with many years of experience and wide-ranging expertise in the data center sector. The team’s main motivation was to create the next step for the data center industry and align edge data centers with the green transition.

nLighten’s goal is to set up and operate the leading pan-European edge data center platform.