We’re excited to announce that we have secured an initial investment of over USD 1 billion from Partners Group, one of the largest firms in the global private markets industry, acting on behalf of its clients. As part of the transaction, Partners Group will back AVK’s growth with a majority investment and provide significant capital to fund the buildout of the on-site infrastructure under an EaaS model for data centre operators.
Our CEO, Ben Pritchard retains a significant shareholding and continues his role as Chief Executive Officer, alongside the existing leadership team, who remain in place across the business.
The USD 1 billion investment marks the first external funding round in our 37-year history, underpinning our continued growth as a European leader in prime, standby, and dispatchable power solutions. The investment strengthens AVK’s core business offering and heritage in mission-critical systems and allows us to meet the market’s clearest demand – speed to power – which has become a strategic imperative and differentiator for data centre and AI infrastructure operators globally. Our core business is backed by our new Haydock manufacturing facility in the North West of England and a team of nearly 400 people across ten hubs in the UK and Europe.
This investment enables AVK to roll-out our strategy to fund, develop, own and operate on-site power solutions such as microgrids, supported by a pipeline over 2GW. Through this, customers will no longer carry the cost or the risk associated with large-scale energy developments, procuring reliable energy via power purchase agreements (PPA) when and exactly where they need it.
Ben Pritchard, CEO at AVK, said:
Speed-to-power is now a defining opportunity for European data centre operators. Our new partnership with Partners Group will allow us to meet our customers exactly where the market demands. From the moment we launched our first microgrid, we recognised the challenge and the opportunity facing developers and operators globally. By adding capital to our power solutions portfolio, we can turn speed-to-power from an ambition into action. I am excited to lead AVK into this new chapter alongside Partners Group, leveraging the firm’s deep operational expertise in the data centre sector and power markets.
As a longstanding investor in digital infrastructure and energy assets, Partners Group brings strong operational expertise. Partners Group has invested in decentralised energy in Europe, as well as in data centres having scaled and exited the pan-Nordic platform atNorth. AVK sits at the cross-section of these growing sectors. Partners Group also has experience investing in behind-the-meter turnkey data centre energy solutions providers in the US.
Nicholas Pepper, Managing Director, Infrastructure, Partners Group, said:
AI is driving one of the largest infrastructure buildouts in decades, and access to power is becoming a defining constraint. This constraint and lengthening connection queues are critical bottlenecks to growth in the European data centre market, which onsite generation can alleviate by accelerating speed-to-power. AVK, with its deep expertise, track record, and pan-European footprint, is well-positioned to address this issue as a one-stop-shop for data centre power solutions. We see an exciting growth opportunity for AVK and we look forward to supporting the management team in its next chapter.
Earlier this year we energised Europe’s first large-scale data centre microgrid at PureDC in Dublin, an energy-constrained region. We’re excited that this new partnership will facilitate further opportunities like this one.