CVC DIF to take majority stake in German data center operator Firstcolo

CVC DIF has agreed to acquire a significant majority stake in Firstcolo, a Frankfurt colocation provider, from Cube Infrastructure Managers. Data Center Dynamics reports the deal is expected to close by the end of September 2026; terms were not shared.

The investment comes through DIF Value Add IV, the value-add pool at CVC's infrastructure arm. Firstcolo will keep its founder-led management: CEO and co-founder Jerome Evans, COO and co-founder Nicolaj Kamensek, and CFO Dennis Bergfeld. Willem Jansonius, managing partner at CVC DIF and co-head of the DIF Value Add strategy, described the company as a rare opportunity in a supply-constrained FLAPD market, with a cash-generative existing business and a substantially de-risked expansion project.

Cube, a mid-market infrastructure investor, bought Firstcolo in 2022, according to the same report. Firstcolo was founded in 2007 and provides colocation, cloud, connectivity and managed services to more than 350 enterprise customers. Its two Frankfurt facilities run near full. The Werkhaus building holds capacity for 1,000 racks across 1,200 square meters; the AOC Data Center adds about 390 racks.

The next site, FRA7, is under development in Frankfurt's Rosbach area. It is a 24MW facility spanning 11,555 square meters, due live in early 2027. Evans called it the first building block of a scalable platform for AI, cloud and enterprise workloads in Germany.

The purchase pairs a running business with a construction project. The two existing sites together hold more than 1,300 racks; FRA7 adds 24MW of new capacity. Value-add funds exist to take on expansion risk, and the buyer's 'substantially de-risked' language frames the schedule risk as manageable.

The expected close lands at the end of September 2026, with FRA7 due in early 2027. Cube has held Firstcolo since 2022, about four years. For an infrastructure asset, that is a short hold. The sequence suggests the owner who carried the platform this far is passing the construction-phase upside to a deeper-pocketed manager. The coverage does not say whether Cube keeps a stake.

Firstcolo is not a hyperscale landlord. Its existing facilities are measured in racks rather than megawatts, its customers enterprises rather than cloud titans. In a supply-constrained market, a mid-market buyer can still find growth there: not every customer needs a 100MW campus, and not every provider can wrap managed services around space and power.

Closing is set for the end of September 2026. Evans said the company plans to expand its presence in the Frankfurt region. Whether the platform scales beyond FRA7 is the part of this announcement still to prove.