French-backed Raxio raises $380m for African data centre push
French infrastructure investor Meridiam has backed a $380m funding boost for Raxio Group’s expansion into Tanzania, targeting a market where growth is constrained by a lack of existing supply rather than the grid limits hampering Europe.
Pan-African colocation operator Raxio Group is entering Tanzania after lifting its funding pool to $380m. The new capital comes from fresh equity injected by its two main shareholders: French infrastructure investor Meridiam and US-based Roha Group.
The company already runs facilities in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Ivory Coast, Angola, Ethiopia, and Uganda. Its strategy targets markets that major cloud providers have historically bypassed, building metro-edge sites rather than massive hyperscale campuses.
“Demand for high-quality data centre infrastructure continues to accelerate across Africa, driven by rapid digital adoption, cloud migration and the emergence of significant AI workloads,” said Robert Skjodt, who became chief executive at the start of 2025.
Skjodt noted that the company’s existing sites have the power density, cooling, and connectivity required for artificial intelligence. “We are beginning to see signs of international cloud providers making plans for Africa,” he added, positioning Raxio to act as a landlord for those entrants rather than a competitor.
The underlying demographic trends support this thesis. McKinsey projects that African data centre capacity demand will reach 2.2 gigawatts by 2030, up from roughly 0.4 gigawatts today. Meeting that growth would require between $10bn and $20bn of investment over the next four years.
While $380m is a fraction of that total, it represents the type of early-stage capital required to build where capacity largely does not exist. Raxio has already secured $100m in debt from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation this year, alongside a $170m sustainability-linked facility from Proparco and the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund.
This expansion highlights a stark divergence from European data centre markets. In Europe, the primary constraint on new builds is electricity supply; Denmark has paused new grid connections entirely, and research suggests the continent’s sovereign AI ambitions may stall due to grid readiness rather than a lack of funding.
In Africa, the bottleneck is more fundamental. By building small and staffing facilities with local engineers, Raxio aims to shift the local digital calculus with a single Tier III site in each target market.
The Tanzanian facility in Dar es Salaam was first announced in March 2022 as the country’s first privately owned Tier III carrier-neutral data centre. Skjodt did not disclose the size, cost, or opening date of the site, which was originally scheduled for 2023. The success of the broader $380m bet depends on whether the international cloud providers Skjodt references convert their plans into signed leases.
