EXA Infrastructure has raised more than €1.3 billion through a new seven-year financing facility to accelerate network expansion and pursue mergers and acquisitions across Europe and North America. The London-based company, backed by I Squared Capital, said the refinancing strengthens its ability to meet rising bandwidth and route diversity demands driven by hyperscalers, enterprises, and critical infrastructure operators.
The new debt package was arranged with a consortium of top-tier lenders including MUFG Bank, DNB, Banco Santander, Lloyds Bank, Goldman Sachs International Bank, NatWest, and funds managed by Allianz Global Investors and Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management. Rothschild & Co advised EXA on the refinancing, with Latham & Watkins serving as legal counsel. The facility will support network expansion initiatives announced earlier this year, including the largest fiber backbone deployment in Central Europe and the first new subsea cable in the North Sea in 25 years, following EXA’s acquisition of Aqua Comms.
“This move gives us an unrivalled ability to continue investing in our network, at a time when our customers need growing amounts of capacity across more routes, to handle an evolving set of applications and demands,” said Jim Fagan, CEO of EXA Infrastructure.
• EXA raised over €1.3 billion in total financing with a seven-year term
• Facility supports expansion projects and future acquisitions
• Backed by a syndicate of global banks and institutional investors
• Recent growth moves include Aqua Comms acquisition and new subsea builds
• Rothschild & Co advised EXA; Latham & Watkins and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett served as legal counsel
🌐 Analysis: EXA’s refinancing underlines investor confidence in the surging demand for cross-continental bandwidth and low-latency transport driven by AI workloads, cloud expansion, and financial trading. The move follows a year of strategic buildouts, positioning EXA alongside operators such as Zayo and Digital 9 Infrastructure in the race to deliver Europe-to-U.S. capacity and diversified terrestrial routes.
EXA Infrastructure is a London-based digital infrastructure platform (a portfolio company of I Squared Capital) that owns and operates a large-scale fiber network bridging Europe and North America. Its mission is to “build & operate the mission critical digital infrastructure” that enables hyperscale customers to expand and interconnect globally. EXA’s technology stack centers on extensive terrestrial and subsea fiber (optical) infrastructure, with advanced low-loss fiber, high-capacity transatlantic cables (e.g. EXA Express) and colocation / data center interconnect services.
In 2024, Jim Fagan was appointed CEO and veteran telecom executive Nick Read (former Vodafone CEO) chairs the board. EXA traces its heritage to assets carved out from Hibernia, Interoute and GTT / Interoute, which were reorganized under I Squared’s ownership beginning in 2021. Its core offerings include Wavelength, Spectrum, Ethernet transport services, colocation, managed fiber, and bespoke high-capacity data center interconnects.
