Since receiving the investment NGD have almost doubled its workforce at its Newport-based tier 3 data centre facility, which is one of the largest of its kind in Europe and staffed by highly-skilled specialists. NGD provides a cost-effective alternative to similar UK facilities and since receiving investment it has grown considerably by securing major contracts with blue chip clients in the corporate, government and cloud computing sectors. The company now provides services for global brands such as IBM and Wipro Technologies and has experienced over 60% growth in sales over the last three years, to the extent where NGD has been able to repay Finance Wales early.
Commenting on a successful three years, Nick Razey, NGD's CEO said: “Since taking on the funding three years ago to help with the build out of further custom data halls, NGD has experienced accelerated year-on-year sales growth and profitability. We now have contracts in place with blue chip technology multi-national organisations such as IBM, Wipro Technologies and UNIT4 to complement our original anchor tenants BT and CGI (previously Logica). We’re also winning a growing number of deals from locally based businesses including Newport’s Certus TG and Sir Terry Matthews’ AirVM.
He added, "The support from Finance Wales has been excellent and their backing was a turning point for the company. Our ability to repay in full much earlier than forecast is testimony to our proven ability in meeting the specific data centre colocation and cloud hosting requirements of both major global organisations and growing UK businesses.”
Tier 3 data centres currently host around 80% of all non-mission critical applications, with demand continuing to grow. Over the next few years NGD hopes to continue expanding its capacity for custom built halls for clients within the NGD facility and further develop its Channel Partner Program which has seen more than ten reseller partners join in the past year.
Portfolio Executive, Dave Perez who managed the relationship since Finance Wales invested in 2011, said: “Next Generation Data has created world-class facilities in Newport and is now an established UK supplier in the data centre market. It has made a significant impact in the Newport area, creating jobs opportunities and boosting the digital sector locally.”
NGD’s Newport facility has triple-skinned walls, bomb-proof glass, prison-grade perimeter fencing, infra-red detection, biometric recognition and ex-special forces security guards. It is also supplied by its own substation providing 90 megavolt-amperes of power - enough to supply a city of around 400,000 people.