PRITZKER GROUP INVESTS $50M INTO DATA CENTER FIRM IO

New World ventures, a Chicago based venture capital banking firm has announced its $50M investment in a Arizona based data technology firm. This has been the firm’s largest investment in 15 years.

New World ventures was founded by J.B. Pritzker, and lead one round of investment in the Phoenix branch of IO that totaled a massive $90M. Chris Girgenti, a managing director at the venture capital firm said that New World ventures usually deals with $5M to $7M. Pritzker understood about IO from his friend Steven Taslitz, co-founder of Chicago-based private-equity firm Sterling Partners. Sterling Partners is also on investor in the company.

“For us, these guys (at IO) are truly disrupting a significant industry today, bringing benefits that heretofore have not been a part of the thinking of this industry,” Girgenti said. “And these benefits are so dramatic in our mind that it’s a foregone conclusion that ultimately this technology and the methodology they use in delivering data centers will be adopted more broadly.”

Girgenti seemed to be content with the way IO dealt with data center building and running them. It was pleased with how it takes less time and money compared to its competitors. A data center of thousand square foot size takes 18 to 30 months for completion, but IO uses a modular approach which can get the center operating in a few months. The company also uses an efficient cooling system to keep high temperatures at bay, which is very essential for companies with large computer rooms and data centers.

Girgenti said, “The new investment will help IO expand globally, as it plans to open a facility in Singapore next year and another one in the United Kingdom in 2014”.

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