NEXTDC to take stake in AUCloud

NEXTDC will take a near 20 percent stake in the operator of AUCloud as the latter looks to the market to fund a new phase of growth.

AUCloud, the trading name for Sovereign Cloud Holdings, said it would issue new shares to raise approximately $35 million, which includes a placement to NEXTDC.

NEXTDC will ultimately wind up with 19.99 percent of the company, as well as a place on the AUCloud board; its total investment would be around $17 million, AUCloud said in a slide deck.

Proceeds from the equity raising will be put to use building “three new sovereignty cloud platform zones in Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide, [which] are forecast to be in operation by 4QFY22, 2QFY23 and 4QFY23 respectively,” AUCloud said.

The money will also go into upgrading storage and compute behind the zones, and into the working capital requirements of AUCloud.

AUCloud said it would need more engineering, sales, marketing and operations staff to facilitate a national expansion of its services.

For AUCloud, there is also strategic partnership aspect to the NEXTDC portion of the deal, opening up access to NEXTDC’s enterprise customers and channel partners.