Thompson Street Capital Partners (TSCP), a middle-market private equity firm investing in the life sciences and healthcare, software and technology, business and consumer services and products sectors, has jointly agreed to a deal with private investment firm Cequel III to take a controlling interest in DDC Cabinet Technology (DDC), a designer and manufacturer of cabinet and enclosure technologies for data centres.
DDC’s Co-Founders Chris Orlando and Mark Ortenzi, who launched the business in 2011, will continue as minority investors. The transaction will also result in Keith Markley becoming DDC’s CEO, effective 5 February. Markley previously served as Executive Vice President, Data Center Operations at TierPoint, a provider of IT infrastructure solutions and a customer of DDC. Cequel III and TSCP are also investors in TierPoint. Orlando and Ortenzi will report to Markley, leading strategy and product innovation respectively.
According to a press release, DDC’s patented solutions provide superior, cost-effective cooling options for the high-density GPU clusters that are required to run AI and other compute-intensive applications.
In a statement, Tom St Geme, Director at TSCP, said: “The market for providing cooling infrastructure to high power density, AI-based computing environments is experiencing explosive growth, and DDC’s proprietary solution is well positioned to be a dominant technology provider within the category.”
Hogan Lovells acted as legal advisor to Cequel III and Kirkland & Ellis as legal advisor to TSCP. VLP Law Group acted as legal advisor and DH Capital, a division of Citizens JMP Securities as financial advisor to DDC.
Financial details of the transaction have not been disclosed.
