CDC Group, the UK’S development finance institution, has invested an additional $40 million in Liquid Telecom, Africa’s largest independent fibre, data centre and cloud technology provider.
This marks CDC’S second equity investment in the company, following a $180 million equity investment in 2018.
CDC’S additional investment is made as part of Liquid Telecom’s wider fundraise where the company attracted $307 million through a rights issue to shareholders.
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This investment will support Liquid Telecom’s plan to further expand its pan-african data centre operation business, Africa Data Centres, and consolidate its position as the leading data centre operator on the continent.
Africa Data Centres is well positioned to service increasing demands for data storage and cloud-based applications across the continent.
Currently, it is estimated that less than 20 percent of potential telecommunications enterprise demand is being served in Africa, with London having three times more cloud computing power available than the entire continent. Liquid Telecom’s development of data centres will boost economic activity by reducing IT related costs for companies.
Increased local capacity will also spur innovation by offering affordable data storage and Software-as-aService (Saas) applications to SMES.
Additionally, the company’s cloud-based services will also help accelerate the growth of Africa’s tech startup ecosystems whilst also supporting the needs of established enterprises across the continent.
