The company, which launched in 2021, has grown from a 5-megawatt site in Australia to over 130 megawatts, expanding into other countries and regions like the U.S. and Europe. Akron's business model focuses on acquiring distressed data center assets globally and its U.S. data center portfolio is largely occupied by institutional-grade bitcoin mining companies. The company aims to meet the increasing demand for data center capacity and provide the underlying infrastructure layer that the AI sector relies on.
Key takeaways:
- Akron Energy, a data center infrastructure company, has raised $110 million in a private funding round led by Bluesky Capital Management, with participation from Kestrel 0x1, Nural Capital and Florence Capital.
- The company plans to use $80 million of the funding to acquire an additional 200-megawatt capacity across new data centers in Ohio, North Carolina and Texas, aiming to increase its total megawatts by 130% by mid-2024.
- Akron's business model involves acquiring distressed data center assets globally, and its U.S. data center portfolio is largely occupied by institutional-grade bitcoin mining companies.
- The remaining $30 million will be used to develop an artificial intelligence cloud service project at Akron’s data center in Norway, targeting the generative AI and large language model training markets.