Vapor IO, the edge computing infrastructure startup announced a Series C funding round led by private equity firm Berkshire Partners, with participation from current investor Crown Castle. The startup did not reveal the size of the funding.
The new investment will be used to launch the company’s groundbreaking Kinetic Edge colocation and interconnection services. Austin-based Vapor also aims at rapid expansion of its footprint edge data centers.
“Vapor IO is building the largest footprint of interconnected edge data centers and we are rolling out at an accelerated pace. We’re thrilled to welcome Berkshire Partners as a lead investor and to have the continued support of Crown Castle. This will help establish Vapor IO’s leadership in the market and offer unprecedented value and performance to our customers,” said Cole Crawford, founder and CEO of Vapor IO.
According to Vapor IO, the company is first-to-market with a comprehensive package of edge colocation, interconnection, and networking services using Kinetic Edge. The company said that it will utilize its award-winning technologies—the Vapor Chamber, Vapor Edge Module and the Synse open source telemetry system—to build and operate the nation’s largest network of edge data centers.
Vapor IO has an ambitious goal to deploy more than 100 edge data center sites in each major metropolitan area in the US by 2020. The startup has already deployed multiple Kinetic Edge data centers in Chicago, IL with plans to have 13 sites underway by the end of 2018, nearly 50 by the end of 2019 and over 100 by the end of 2020. More details on the rollout plans will be disclosed later.
Vapor IO Takes Control of Project Volutus
Edge data center startup Vapor IO has also taken control of its edge-based data center colocation technology, which was previously handled by cell tower giant Crown Castle. The partner-driven edge colocation business was originally operated under the codename 'Project Volutus'. Under ‘Project Volutus,’ Crown Castle handled the physical deployment plans that were centered on its real estate and networking assets, while Vapor IO handled the service management. The project was launched last year.
As per the new arrangement, 'Project Volutus' will now be offered commercially under the Vapor IO Kinetic Edge brand. But, Vapor IO will continue to leverage Crown Castle’s assets, including its tower real estate and metro fiber. Crown will remain a Vapor partner.
“Vapor IO is a leader in edge computing and their solution provides edge colocation with the most dense compute per square foot, which optimizes the use of the valuable land under our towers. When you combine our distributed real estate and high capacity fiber connectivity with Vapor IO’s capabilities, Crown Castle is uniquely positioned to enable edge computing,” said Phil Kelley, senior vice president of Corporate Development and Strategy for Crown Castle.
