The news is also followed by the announcement that Chayora has completed the $64 million first tranche of the investment. In March 2016, the Actis team made the original series B investment when it was part of Standard Chartered Principal Finance Real Estate, a result of that AAREF became a majority holding in Chayora.
“We are very excited to extend our partnership with Chayora and to support its next phase of expansion and growth with this Series C round of funding,” said Brian Chinappi, partner and head of Asia Real Estate of Actis. “With a focused approach to develop world class standard data centre campuses in China, Chayora has amassed all the essential ingredients in a challenging regulatory environment to be a one-stop data centre infrastructure solution provider. We look forward to working closely with Chayora’s founders and management team to make it one of the preferred data centre partners for both domestic and international internet and cloud players in China.”
This Series C funding will give Chayora expansion capital for its data centre development projects. Combined with project debt of $250 million, it will enable Chayora to complete two hyperscale data centre facilities on the Chayora’s Tianjin campus and acquire land for further growth.
Under the terms of the agreement, all land and property interests previously held under separate ownership structures will be integrated and become 100% owned by Chayora, thanks in part to AAREF holding majority of Chayora’s ordinary shares. This includes the land and first data centre building already completed on the 80 acre, 300MVA Tianjin campus.
In addition, the company confirmed that it is launching its first colocation data halls designed to Tier III ‘concurrently maintainable international standards’ to accommodate the high demand for smaller scale data storage requirements alongside the build-to-suit services available to both international and Chinese domestic hyperscale cloud service providers.The new facility will be managed in partnership with an unnamed colocation operator.
“The close working relationship we have developed with the Actis team is valued and we are very pleased to have concluded agreement for the significant commitment being made to Chayora in this funding round. For Actis and Chayora, this underlines our strategic and long-term plan to create a leading data centre business in China to support market access by the world’s leading online services businesses,” added Oliver Jones, CEO, Chayora.
