Teraco Data Environments

Last updated
Teraco Data Environments
TypePrivate
IndustryInternet Infrastructure
Founded2008;15 years ago (2008)
Founders
  • Tim Parsonson
  • Lex van Wyk
Headquarters Isando,
Johannesburg
,
South Africa
Number of locations
7 data centre locations across South Africa
Area served
Sub-Saharan Africa
Parent
Website https://www.teraco.co.za

Teraco Data Environments is a carrier-, cloud- and vendor-neutral data centre provider founded by Tim Parsonson and Lex van Wyk in 2008. On 1 August 2022, Digital Realty announced that it had completed the purchase of a majority stake in Teraco, previously controlled by Berkshire Partners, Permira and a group of investors. [1] [2]

Contents

Overview

As the local telecommunications market began to deregulate, Teraco's founders recognised an opportunity for a truly vendor-neutral data centre offering in South Africa. [3] [4]

The possibility of providing a service that was not tied to any carrier or ISP became not only technically feasible and economically viable, but increasingly desirable to South African enterprises that needed unrestricted choice in how they interconnected their facilities and connected to the internet.

Teraco has brought international best practices in vendor-neutral data centre management to South Africa to give businesses a technically superior, physically safer, and lower-cost environment for their information systems. Teraco manages colocation data centres in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban.

As Africa's leading carrier-neutral colocation provider, Teraco is the first provider of highly resilient, vendor-neutral data environments in sub-Saharan Africa. With its world-class data centre infrastructure and network-dense ecosystems, Teraco forms a vital part of the African internet's backbone and is essential to the modern enterprise's digital transformation strategy. Purpose-built and operated to global best practice by an organisation with an absolute focus on data centre technology and infrastructure, Teraco offers its clients secure, cost-effective, sustainable, scalable, and resilient data centre services.

Its ever-expanding ecosystems move Teraco beyond colocation and establish it as an open marketplace for digital growth and innovation. Discovering new business partners, making strategic interconnection choices, on-ramping to a choice of cloud providers, and reaching new markets globally, Teraco provides a highly secure, flexible, and resilient home for digital organisations across the world.

Teraco is majority-owned by Digital Realty (NYSE: DLR) - offering customers a global data centre platform designed to enable digital business to scale within a highly connected data community across >300 data centres in 50+ metros and 25+ countries on six continents - and a consortium of private equity investors, including Berkshire Partners LLC and Permira. Teraco is a Level 2 BBBEE contributor (DTI Codes).

Data centres

Teraco built Africa's largest data centre in Johannesburg, South Africa. [5] [6] [7] In 2012, the company created NAPAfrica, a fully funded non-profit neutral Internet eXchange Point (IXP). [8] [9] [10] Teraco has additional data centres in Durban and Cape Town. [11]

Peering by NAPAfrica

Xneelo, South Africa's web hosting company, partnered with this company. [12] [13] [14] [15] Telkom peered with NAPAfrica through its Openserve wholesale and network division in 2016. [16] Clients will be able to use the Microsoft service through this company. [17] The telecom operator, Angola Cables, peered with this company in 2017. [18]

Accomplishments and funding

After completing an Environmental Impact Assessment, Teraco was granted permission to store 210,000 litres of diesel on site. [19]

2011: The company received R158 million in Series C financing. [20]

2013: A R200 million medium-term funding facility was provided from Absa's corporate and investment banking division. [21]

2014: Teraco is acquired by Permira in first African investment. [22]

2015: The company acquired R400 million in funding. [23]

2016: Liquid Telecom invested $3.5 million in a new satellite hub. [24]

2017: Barclays Africa Group funded R1.2 billion ($90 million) for Teraco Data Environments. [25] [26]

2022: Digital Realty acquires 55% stake in Teraco Data Environments [27]

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. ↑ "Digital Realty completes acquisition of Teraco". Creamer Media's Engineering News. Retrieved 2022-12-29.
  2. ↑ "Digital Realty Completes Acquisition of Teraco". PR Newswire. Retrieved 2022-12-29.
  3. ↑ "Teraco raises $90 million for South African data center expansion". DatacenterDynamics. Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  4. ↑ "Open Access brings in 5 years of expanding Africa's Internet ecosystem" . Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  5. ↑ "Teraco sets date for launch of Africa's biggest commercial data center". DatacenterDynamics. Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  6. ↑ "We saw what South Africa's internet will look like in 5 years – and it's incredible" . Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  7. ↑ "Africa's largest data centre to be built in Johannesburg - CNBC Africa". CNBC Africa. 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  8. ↑ Roanne. "NAPAfrica celebrates five years as Africa's largest IXP". ITWeb Technology News. Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  9. ↑ Rawlins, Lauren Kate. "Netflix arrives in SA via Teraco's NAPAfrica". ITWeb Technology News. Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  10. ↑ "[IN PICTURES] Inside Africa's biggest internet exchange - htxt.africa". htxt.africa. 2014-07-29. Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  11. ↑ "NAPAfrica is doing over 100Gbps of traffic" . Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  12. ↑ Staff Writer. "Teraco secures R1.2 bn from Absa for further investment - ITWeb Africa". www.itwebafrica.com. Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  13. ↑ Thakudi, Phahamang. "Hetzner peers with NAP Africa for mutual benefit". ITWeb Technology News. Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  14. ↑ "Hetzner breaks 1 petabyte monthly outbound traffic" . Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  15. ↑ "Hetzner joins peering at NAPAfrica - TechCentral". TechCentral. 2017-04-13. Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  16. ↑ "Telkom's Openserve to peer at NAPAfrica - TechCentral". TechCentral. 2016-05-04. Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  17. ↑ "Teraco partners with Microsoft for Azure ExpressRoute" . Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  18. ↑ "Angola Cables to peer at NAPAfrica – Africa's most connected Internet Exchange". BiztechAfrica. Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  19. ↑ "Building Africa's biggest data centre". BiztechAfrica. Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  20. ↑ "Teraco Data Environments get R158 million" . Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  21. ↑ "Teraco, Absa in R200m funding deal - TechCentral". TechCentral. 2013-05-13. Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  22. ↑ "Permira makes first African investment in data centre firm Teraco". Reuters. 2014-12-04. Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  23. ↑ "Teraco plans second Johannesburg datacentre, gets R400bn to do it - htxt.africa". htxt.africa. 2015-01-27. Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  24. ↑ Henry, Caleb (2016-03-15). "Liquid Telecom Establishes Second Satellite Hub at Teraco Data Center in South Africa - Via Satellite -". Via Satellite. Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  25. ↑ "Permira makes first African investment in data centre firm Teraco". Reuters. 2014-12-04. Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  26. ↑ "Teraco Data raises $90m for African data centre rollout". www.capacitymedia.com. Retrieved 2017-12-26.
  27. ↑ "Digital Realty acquires 55% stake in Teraco Data Centres". TECH dot AFRICA. 2022-01-04. Retrieved 2022-01-04.
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