French private investment firm Ardian has completed the acquisition of the entire share capital of Verne, a UK-based data center platform.
It bought the company, formerly known as Verne Global, from British investment firm Digital 9 Infrastructure (D9), which acquired the company for £231 million in 2021.
The new agreement will allow Ardian to support Verne's expansion in Northern Europe with up to $1.2 billion in committed investments through equity and debt.
“With this new investment, the infrastructure team continues to demonstrate its ability to seize unique and value-accretive opportunities in the European market to implement our new flagship infrastructure fund,” said Juan Angoitia and Benoît Gaillochet, co-heads of Infrastructure Europe at Ardian .
“Having identified the company through our systemic matrix sourcing approach, looking through both a digital infrastructure and a country-specific lens, we identified Verne as a truly green data center compared to its global peers. “.
Founded in 2012, Verne serves organizations running high-performance computing workloads, particularly AI, machine learning, and large language models, including industrial organizations, financial services, research organizations, and AI companies.
It currently operates on 100% renewable energy in Iceland, where it offers colocation and high-performance computing services. The company also uses 100% decarbonized energy at plants in Finland and the United Kingdom.
Its Icelandic campus functions as a telecommunications exchange center, with direct high-capacity connectivity to the United States and Europe.
Ardian said it plans to increase Verne's existing sold capacity of 29 MW by 2023 almost fourfold in the medium term. It is seeking new locations, focusing on Iceland, Finland, Sweden and Norway, as well as broader potential opportunities in northern Europe.
Ardian currently manages or advises $164 billion in assets on behalf of more than 1,600 clients worldwide. It has $31 billion in assets under management in direct infrastructure activities, with $6 billion deployed in different digital infrastructure subsectors.
Its portfolio of renewable energy investments in the Nordic countries currently stands at $3 billion, including wind farms totaling around 500 MW, as well as Nevel, a Finnish district heating company backed by Ardian in 2021.
“This investment is fully aligned with our focus at Ardian to invest in platforms and generate strong returns through a significant industrial strategy supported by an accelerated capital expenditure plan,” said Gonzague Boutry, managing director of digital infrastructure at Ardian.
“Ardian will support Verne's world-class management team to meet the incredible and exciting AI-driven demand from customers. With this investment, Ardian Infrastructure is now exposed to the entire digital infrastructure value chain by capitalizing on trends in global digitization”.
