Data centre firm NxtGen raises $13.5M from IFC, Axon Partners Group, Intel Capital

Bangalore-based IT infrastructure services provider NxtGen Datacenter & Cloud Technologies Pvt Ltd has raised $13.5 million (Rs 86 crore) from International Finance Corporation (IFC), private sector lending arm of the World Bank, Axon Partners Group and existing investor Intel Capital.

The money from this Series B round of funding would be used by NxtGen to open new high density data centre in Bangalore and augment its investments in cloud infrastructure, it said in the statement.

At present, the company has two data centres in India – in Mumbai and Bangalore – apart from offices in four major metro cities.

"This second round of funding, will enable us to further strengthen our growth plans in India and initiate our international strategy," NxtGen's CEO A S Rajgopal said.

Intel Capital, the corporate VC arm of the global chip maker Intel Corp, had invested $8.8 million (Rs 53.9 crore) in the company in August 2013.

Axon Partners Group, which specialises in growth capital investments in the digital technology market, has invested in India in companies like iYogi and Captronics Systems through its India Opportunities Fund. The company recently exited JustEat India, which was acquired by Foodpanda.

"Affordable and effective IT infrastructure co-location and cloud computing services are increasingly important for digital inclusion and economic development. Built to top industry standards, NxtGen's data centers will support India's growing need for data consumption, incur capital savings for businesses, and boost direct and indirect job creation," Atul Mehta, IFC's director for telecom, media and technology (TMT), venture capital and funds, said in the statement.

TMT group at IFC focuses its investments on mobile, broadband, and infrastructure sharing.

In March this year, IFC had said that it is planning an equity investment and debt funding of up to $20 million (Rs 125 crore) in NxtGen Technology Pte Ltd, the Singapore-based parent of NxtGen Datacenter & Cloud Technologies. It also said that this would be part of a larger project which would absorb total investment of $84 million. It is not clear if the size of the funding round has been pruned or this is first tranche of a larger round.

Founded in August 2013 by AS Rajgopal, the Bangalore-based startup delivers central IT platform-as-a-service to enterprises, providing full spectrum data centre and enterprise cloud services from its own high density data centre facilities and deploying centrally managed on-premise data centres at customer locations.

The main shareholders of the company include Rajgopal and other members of the management through NxtGen Partners, an Indian partnership firm, the employees and Intel Capital.

At present, it has an employee base of 105 and 200+ channel partners taking its services to market.