Megaport expands in Europe with new acquisitions

Listed Australian network interconnection company Megaport is continuing its worldwide expansion through the acquisition of the second largest internet exchange in Germany, PEERING GmbH.

PEERING operates under the European Commercial Internet Exchange (ECIX) brand and connects some 150 networks.

The company runs internet exchanges (IXes) in Berlin, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Munich and Frankfurt, and has 30 points of presence throughout the country with links from one to 100 gigabit per second.

Megaport also bought Bulgarian network services provider and IX operator OM-NIX.

The purchases come after Megaport's earlier forays into Europe. In January it signed a deal with large Amsterdam peering exchange AMS-IX to become its exclusive global partner for elastic cloud connections.

Megaport's Elastic Fabric product is currently avaliable at nine sites in the European cities of London, Dublin, Stockholm, and Amsterdam, with a further four scheduled to go online in the coming weeks.

Together, the new acqusitions give Megaport a European footprint spanning 13 countries and 19 cities, and 48 new locations for a total of 57 on the continent.

Megaport spent $3.1 million in cash buying PEERING and OM-NIX.

The company is trying to raise a further $17.85 million through a placement of 10.5 million shares to fund further expansion across Europe, the Asia-Pacific, and North America, and to pay for staff, marketing costs and general working capital, Megaport chief executive Denver Maddux said in a statement.