Raxio to Enter Tanzania With $380 Million Funding Push

Africa-focused data-center firm Raxio Group plans to enter Tanzania as it increases its funding pool to $380 million, Chief Executive Officer Robert Skjødt said.

The company has secured additional money from its main shareholders — Meridiam and Roha Group Inc. — and will expand its presence on the continent, Skjødt said in an interview.

“Our current shareholders are deepening their positions because the opportunity has grown,” he said.

Skjødt said Raxio’s facilities are AI-ready, with the power density, cooling systems and connectivity needed to support growing demand from this sector.

“We are beginning to see signs of international cloud providers making plans for Africa,” he said.

While data usage in Africa is still very low compared with the rest of the world, the continent is home to the fastest growing and youngest population in the world, who are increasingly tech-savvy. That has also seen demand for digital services increase and global technology companies, with Microsoft Corp., Amazon Web Services, and Alphabet Inc.’s Google expanding their cloud services in the region.

The Africa data-center market is entering a phase of “accelerated growth,” with demand for capacity expected to rise to as much as 2.2 gigawatts by 2030 from about 0.4 gigawatts, according to recent report by McKinsey & Co. The opportunity will require between $10 billion to $20 billion in investment in the next four years, it said.

Raxio is building a network of carrier-neutral facilities in underserved African markets.

The latest equity funding strengthens Raxio’s plans to develop a portfolio of data centers across the continent, where it already operates in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Ivory Coast, Angola, Ethiopia and Uganda, Skjødt said.

The company focuses on appointing local teams in the countries where it builds its data centers, he said.

Sign up here for the daily Next Africa newsletter and subscribe to the Next Africa podcast on Apple, Spotify or anywhere you listen.