M&A, IPOs, executive shuffles, subscale, hyperscale, JVs, layoffs
It was a busy week across the sector, with M&A, strategic moves and movement in executive circles.
There was more M&A in the past week as providers across both subscale and hyperscale acquired technology and capabilities that are sure to be productized in the near future. Digital Ocean acquired a backup and recovery technology provider, while Microsoft acquired Fungible with an eye to enhancing the performance and efficiency of the Azure cloud infrastructure platform. In other M&A activity, VIRTUS has new investors and DIF Capital Partners acquired a regional data centre operator in the US.
There were a number of notable strategic developments. On the SMB side of the market, United Internet’s IONOS is moving towards a public offering as a standalone company, while in the data centre space, Digital Edge formed a JV in India, eStruxture and Netrality secured more capital for growth initiatives and COPT partnered with Blackstone for more hyperscale data centre JVs.
Tech layoffs continue to accelerate and they have generally not touched public cloud operations. That looks to have changed as there will a few cuts to the Azure team at Microsoft.
Meanwhile, movement in executive circles continues. Rackspace is moving forward with its effort to build two operating units within the company and hired a new president from the data centre and connectivity side to run it. The changes also continue at Digital Realty as a new CFO was brought in to replace Andy Power, who moved from the CFO to CEO role. There were also new management additions at Verne Global and Stream Data Centers.
Finally, there was continued expansion activity around London. Vantage Data Centers entered the London market and Global Switch and Telehouse received approval for new projects.
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