….draws down $80mn to deepen operations in S/Africa
Africa Data Centres (ADC), a business of Cassava Technologies, a pan-African technology group, has drawn down the first tranche of USD 83 million out of the USD 300 million strategic investment from the United States International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) approved in 2021.
The initial tranche is being applied towards expanding ADC’s data centres in South Africa while it plans to also build data centres in 10 of Africa’s largest economic capitals.
Subsequently, the group plans to use disbursements from DFC to realise the expansion of ADC’s footprint of data centres in other DFC-eligible African countries including Abidjan, Accra, Lagos, Cairo, and Casablanca.
The new projects are expected to complement the group’s existing data centres in Johannesburg and Cape Town, thereby cementing its position as Africa’s largest operator of a pan-African network of interconnected carrier-neutral data centres.
Commenting on the expansion of the data centre operations in South Africa, the ADC CEO, Tesh Durvasula, said: “The increasing demand for cloud and other digital technologies on the continent has directly increased the demand for African data to reside within the continent. This means Africa needs more data centres. We are pleased that our data centre expansion programme in South Africa funded by DFC will cater to the growing demand in the country.”
In his remarks, President and CEO of Cassava Technologies, Hardy Pemhiwa, further clarified: “This investment by DFC follows our recent announcement of the USD 50 million investment by C5 Capital into Cassava Technologies and a partnership to build Cyber Security Operations Centres across six markets in Africa.
Through these investments, Cassava Technologies is building Africa’s digital infrastructure to enable accelerated economic development and ensure a digitally connected future that leaves no African behind.
“Africa has unrealised economic potential that will be unlocked by this investment from DFC. We look forward to working closely with DFC to overcome Africa’s digital infrastructure deficit and accelerate the adoption of cloud services and digital applications across all industries, further making the continent a competitive destination for international investment”, Pemhiwa added.
