The funding is intended to support economic growth and digital inclusion by facilitating improved access to computer processing capacity across the continent.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) has agreed to provide $100m (€91.5m) in debt financing to Raxio Group, a Dutch-based company building data centres across sub-Saharan Africa.
The funding will allow Raxio to expand its network, providing a platform for applications such as artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing and digital financial services that should help drive African economic growth and digital inclusion.
Raxio said it plans to establish data centres in at least five additional African countries by 2027, doubling its capacity to cater for growing demand in underserved markets across the continent. Data centres in Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique and Uganda are operational, one in Angola is due to launch by mid-2025 and another in Tanzania is under construction.
The company builds carrier-neutral, co-location data centres, which means they are not tied to one service provider and that third-party companies can hire capacity.
Sarvesh Suri, IFC regional industry director, infrastructure and natural resources in Africa said Raxio’s business model showed how digital infrastructure could empower businesses, governments and communities to thrive in the digital economy.
“This partnership between Raxio and IFC is set to strengthen Africa’s digital ecosystem and catalyse further investments and regional integration, building a more inclusive and sustainable future,” he said.
Robert Skjødt, Raxio Group’s CEO said the financing would help the company to bring critical infrastructure to the regions that need it most and attract further investment as it expanded.
Renewables focus
The fast growth of the data centre industry globally, driven by the processing demands of AI-driven technology, is seen as a crucial to economic growth. However, it has attracted controversy, because its large energy requirements have led to suggestions that the phase out of fossil fuels should be slowed to help meet them.
Raxio said it integrates renewable energy into its projects to minimise its environmental footprint and uses innovative energy-efficient equipment to reduce electricity and water consumption for cooling in several of its facilities.
Skjødt told Impact Investor that 70% of the electricity currently consumed by its data centres is derived from hydropower.
“Availability of renewable energy from the grid is a key factor we consider when selecting a new location during the initial technical due diligence for any new data centre investment,” he said.
Raxio plans to facilitate supply from renewables power such as solar PV, combined with battery storage, either behind the meter or via arrangements with independent renewable energy producers.
“We currently have two potential opportunities for solar PV in Mozambique and Côte d’Ivoire, where the technology parks are exploring the deployment of solar energy plants. We are very interested in becoming an off-taker once these projects are developed,” said Skjødt .
Raxio’s Côte d’Ivoire facility, which was inaugurated in September 2024, is capable of delivering 3 megawatts of power to customer equipment.
DFI support
The IFC’s Raxio financing includes concessional funding from the Advancing Gender Equality, Resilience, Opportunity, and Inclusion Worldwide (GROW) Facility, launched in 2024 with a C$100m (€63.9m) investment from the Canadian government. GROW seeks to advance gender equity and inclusive economic growth by combining blended finance and advisory services with IFC financing.
This funding follows on from earlier debt financing for Raxio’s data centres from development finance institutions. In April 2023, the company secured a sustainability-linked debt facility of up to $170m, including $110m from France’s Proparco and the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund (EAIF), which is part of the multilateral Private Infrastructure Development Group.
Later in 2023 Raxio received an additional $46m in equity funding from two of Raxio’s shareholders, US-based investment firm Roha and sustainable infrastructure asset manager Meridiam. Raxio was founded by Roha in 2018.
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