CVC DIF has agreed to acquire a significant majority stake in firstcolo GmbH from CUBE Infrastructure, backing the German data center operator as it prepares to develop a new AI-ready facility capable of supporting liquid-cooled racks of up to 200 kW.
The investment will be made through CVC DIF Value Add IV. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Completion is expected by the end of September 2026, subject to customary closing conditions.
Founded in 2007, firstcolo operates two data centers in the Frankfurt metropolitan region and serves more than 350 customers across colocation, dedicated hardware, cloud, connectivity, and managed services.
The transaction will provide additional backing for firstcolo’s next phase of expansion, beginning with its FRA7 greenfield development in Rosbach vor der Höhe.
FRA7 is being designed for up to 24 MW of total capacity, including up to 16 MW of IT load.
The facility is being planned specifically for increasingly power-intensive artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, and cloud workloads.
Its infrastructure will support liquid-cooled high-density racks of up to 200 kW per rack, creating capacity for GPU clusters used in AI training, inference, and other compute-intensive applications.
firstcolo is also targeting a power usage effectiveness, or PUE, of below 1.2 at the facility.
The site, electricity supply, necessary permits, and delivery through a turnkey construction model are already secured, reducing several development risks typically associated with new data center projects.
firstcolo has also established a partnership with regional energy provider OVAG to secure the site’s power supply.
The arrangement is expected to allow waste heat generated by FRA7 to be integrated into regional district heating networks.
CVC DIF sees FRA7 as the foundation for a larger high-performance data center platform that could expand throughout the Frankfurt region and into other German markets.
The facility will also give firstcolo operating experience to inform future AI-ready developments.
Demand for high-density infrastructure is increasing as AI workloads require substantially more computing power and cooling capacity than many conventional enterprise applications.
firstcolo plans to position its platform around those requirements while also serving sovereign cloud architectures, regulated industries, and other business-critical workloads.
The company’s development strategy incorporates renewable electricity, advanced cooling technologies, energy-efficiency measures, and waste-heat utilization.
All of firstcolo’s existing data center operations are powered by certified renewable electricity.
The company also operates its own IP backbone with capacity exceeding 2,000 Gbit/s and offers guaranteed availability of 99.999%.
Founders Jerome Evans and Nicolaj Kamensek will remain actively involved as CEO and COO, respectively, and will retain equity interests in firstcolo.
They will continue leading the business alongside CFO Dennis Bergfeld and the existing management team.
CVC DIF manages approximately €23 billion of infrastructure assets across energy transition, transportation, utilities, and digitalization.
The firm believes firstcolo combines an established cash-generating colocation business with a substantially de-risked expansion opportunity in a supply-constrained European data center market.
KEY QUOTES:
“The partnership with CVC DIF marks an important milestone for firstcolo, and a significant endorsement of what our team has built over recent years. We are proud to have gained a partner in CVC DIF that shares our long-term vision and will support us in delivering it.”
“FRA7 is more than a new data centre: it will strengthen our platform and enhance our ability to support the next generation of AI, cloud and enterprise workloads. Together with CVC DIF, we intend to build on our strong operational foundation, expand our presence in the Frankfurt metropolitan region and pursue further growth opportunities in attractive German markets. Our objective is to develop firstcolo into one of Germany’s leading colocation providers, delivering high-performance, reliable and long-term predictable infrastructure from Germany.”
Jerome Evans, CEO and Co-Founder of firstcolo
“Since our foundation, firstcolo has been built on technical excellence, operational reliability and close customer relationships. We will now apply these principles across a significantly larger platform.”
“FRA7 will be delivered as a state-of-the-art, AI-ready data centre supporting up to 200 kW per rack, with advanced liquid cooling, robust power infrastructure, high-performance connectivity and scalable operating processes. The experience gained through the planning, construction and operation of the facility will strengthen our capabilities and inform the development of potential future projects. As we grow, it is essential that we maintain our quality standards, short decision-making paths and the personal technical responsibility our customers value.”
Nicolaj Kamensek, COO and Co-Founder of firstcolo
“firstcolo represents a rare opportunity to invest in a high-quality, founder-led colocation platform in an attractive and supply-constrained FLAP-D data centre markets. The company combines a resilient, cash-generative existing business with a substantially de-risked expansion project and a differentiated service offering for enterprise customers.”
“We look forward to working with Jerome, Nicolaj, Dennis and the wider firstcolo team to deliver FRA7 and support the company’s development into the leading German colocation platform.”
Willem Jansonius, Managing Partner at CVC DIF and Head of the CVC DIF Value Add Strategy
“firstcolo is a strong example of CVC DIF’s local-for-local approach in action. The opportunity was sourced through our Frankfurt team’s local network and developed in seamless collaboration with our pan-European digital infrastructure team.”
“By combining local market access with deep sector and execution expertise, we were able to develop strong conviction in the business and a clear plan to support its next phase of growth.”
Stefan Moosmann, Head of DACH at CVC DIF
