Raxio Data Centres speeds up Africa's digital transition with the support of Proparco

Together, those projects will provide up to 11 MW of additional data processing and storage capacity, delivering high-grade colocation and IT infrastructure services in countries with limited or no neutral and open-access data centres, including Uganda, Ethiopia, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Angola and Tanzania.

Proparco co-arranged the debt financing alongside the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF), part of the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) company. The loans include incentives to reach sustainability performance targets, such as renewable power supply or energy and water usage efficiency. Those ESG principles align with the core values and the strong commitment of Raxio’s shareholders; Roha, the investment firm that founded the company, and Meridiam.

Ariane Ducreux, Head of Energy Digital and Infrastructure at Proparco commented, “Data centres, which concentrate data, services and a powerful aspect of service access, are the new hotspots of the digital economy. We believe digital infrastructure projects like Raxio’s contribute to reinforce social ties and to reduce socio-economic inequalities. This is especially true in sub-Saharan Africa where the lack of neutral and shared datacenters undermines the potential of the local digital services markets. Therefore, we are proud to support Raxio’s first development phase of seven carrier-neutral datacenters across Africa, together with long-standing partners like EAIF, Meridiam and Roha. The sustainability targets set in the loan agreements also aim at fostering datacenters with exemplary environmental sobriety and security levels.”