CVC DIF Buys Majority Stake in Frankfurt Colocation Operator firstcolo

CVC DIF, the infrastructure investment arm of CVC, announced on August 14, 2026 that it has agreed to acquire a significant majority stake in Frankfurt colocation operator firstcolo from Cube Infrastructure Managers. The deal, made through the DIF Value Add IV fund, is expected to close by the end of September 2026; the purchase price was not disclosed. Alongside the acquisition, CVC DIF is backing firstcolo’s planned 24 MW greenfield expansion, FRA7, in Rosbach vor der Höhe near Frankfurt.

What is changing hands

Per CVC DIF’s own press release, firstcolo was founded in Frankfurt in 2007 and today runs two data centers in the metro area, serving more than 350 enterprise customers with colocation, dedicated cloud hardware, connectivity and managed services on its own IP backbone. Both existing facilities are described as near-fully utilized — a detail that matters more than the deal value, since it signals the operator has no meaningful spare capacity to sell without building more.

That is where FRA7 comes in. The planned facility in Rosbach vor der Höhe is sized at 24 MW gross capacity with roughly 16 MW of IT load, engineered for liquid-cooled racks up to 200 kW and a target PUE below 1.2. Power is secured through a partnership with regional utility OVAG, and firstcolo says the site, permits and a turnkey construction model are already in place — though it has not disclosed when construction begins. Founders Jerome Evans (CEO) and Nicolaj Kamensek (COO), along with CFO Dennis Bergfeld, remain in place to run the company. CVC DIF managing partner Willem Jansonius called firstcolo “a rare opportunity to invest in a high-quality, founder-led colocation platform in an attractive and supply-constrained” market.

What this means for a capacity buyer

Frankfurt is one of the four FLAP-D hubs where new colocation supply has struggled to keep pace with demand, and firstcolo’s own facilities being described as near-fully utilized is a small but concrete data point for that squeeze. Our SEA and global catalog already lists 13 operating or under-construction facilities in the Frankfurt cluster from CyrusOne, Digital Realty (Interxion), Equinix, Colt DCS, NTT and others — FRA7 becomes the 14th once it breaks ground, and we’ve added it to the catalog as an announced project rather than waiting for a groundbreaking date.

We do not carry a Frankfurt price benchmark in the colocation price index yet, so we can’t quantify what tightening enterprise-segment supply does to Frankfurt rack rates specifically. As a directional comparison, Singapore — our other structurally supply-constrained market covered in the index — trades wholesale colocation at $330-475/kW/month, the highest of any market we track, precisely because a multi-year approval freeze left it short of contiguous capacity. A private-equity buyer funding new supply because existing Frankfurt inventory is sold out points in a similar direction on price, though the magnitude in Frankfurt’s case is unproven.

What we don’t know yet

CVC DIF has not disclosed the acquisition price, so there’s no way to benchmark this deal against other recent European colocation transactions on a dollar-per-MW basis. FRA7 also has no announced construction-start or go-live date — “site, permits and turnkey model secured” is a real head start, but it is not the same as a committed delivery schedule. We’ll update this record if either figure surfaces.