HostDime.com Inc. used to get one inquiry a month from groups interested in investing in the Orlando-based data center operator. In the last 24 months, the volume of those emails and calls more than doubled.
That’s according to HostDime founder and CEO Manny Vivar, who told Orlando Inno the surge in interest from investors revealed an opportunity to raise large amounts of capital to rapidly scale the company. That’s why Vivar and HostDime are engaging with investors with the goal to raise $100 million or more, as first reported by data center news site The Tech Capital.
Vivar shared some exclusive details with Orlando Inno. For one thing, HostDime is engaged with between eight and 10 potential investors, though Vivar declined to share the names of the companies before a deal is finalized.
HostDime also seeks capital to accelerate its plans to build more data centers and achieve a $1 billion-plus valuation, Vivar told Orlando Inno. "It can take us another three years or another 10 years [without investment]."
HostDime would use the capital to build more data centers throughout Latin America, where the firm will focus its future expansion. HostDime operates data centers in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, India, Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.
Fifth Third Securities will advise HostDime as it seeks outside investment.
A nine-figure capital raise would be a significant shift for HostDime, since Vivar launched it with $60 of his own money, and he bootstrapped the 20-year-old business without money from outside investors.
To see the photos from the topping-off ceremony of HostDime's Orlando data center, check out the gallery above.
However, investors have jumped into the data center sector in recent years. In fact, there were 209 data center investment deals worth a combined $48 billion in 2021, up from $34 billion worth of deals in 2020, per a Jan. 17 report by consulting giant McKinsey & Co. Private equity money made up 65% of investment deals from 2019-2021.
Meanwhile, HostDime nears the completion of its 100,000-square-foot office and data center in Eatonville that Vivar previously described as "the Penn Station of Florida." The data center is on track to be finished by June, Vivar said.
The $37 million facility will be the only Tier IV public data center in Central Florida. Data centers are classified through a tier system run by New York-based Uptime Institute. The highest standard is Tier IV, which are facilities available for use 99.995% of the time and suffer little downtime.
HostDime won’t build future data centers in the U.S. outside of Orlando, Vivar said. "Orlando is where we were born."
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