Who owns DataBank? Ownership structure explained (2026)

DataBank is one of the largest edge data-center operators in the United States, running more than 65 facilities across more than 25 markets. Its buildings hold the servers, storage, and network gear that power cloud services, enterprise IT, and, increasingly, the artificial-intelligence workloads that drive Nvidia's business. As demand for compute capacity has surged, DataBank has become one of the most heavily financed private infrastructure companies in the country.

Its ownership is unusually layered. DataBank is not owned outright by any single parent. Instead, DigitalBridge, a publicly traded infrastructure investment firm, acts as the sponsor and manager that controls the company, while the bulk of the equity sits with a rotating group of pension funds, insurers, and asset managers who invest through DigitalBridge-managed vehicles. Understanding who owns DataBank means separating who controls it from who holds the capital.

That distinction has grown more important as the numbers have grown larger. Between late 2024 and early 2025, DataBank pulled in billions of dollars to fund new AI-ready campuses, and the investor roster changed with almost every round. This article traces how the ownership works, who the major backers are, and what the pending SoftBank takeover of DigitalBridge could mean for the company.

DataBank was founded in 2005 and is based in Dallas, Texas. The company provides colocation, interconnection, managed services, and edge data-center capacity. In plain terms, it leases secure, powered, cooled space inside its facilities to enterprises, cloud providers, and other customers who need somewhere reliable to run their computing hardware.

The company has expanded from a small regional operator into a national platform. When DigitalBridge's predecessor first acquired it in 2016, DataBank ran six data centers in three markets. By 2025 it operated more than 65 data centers across more than 25 US markets, positioning itself as the largest edge colocation operator in the country by facility count.

DataBank's growth strategy centers on building large new campuses to serve AI and cloud demand. Announced projects include a 480MW campus in South Dallas, Texas, a 192MW campus in Culpeper, Virginia, and a 120MW site in Atlanta, Georgia. The campuses are designed to host the high-density racks that AI-chip makers like Nvidia and challengers such as Cerebras are shipping in volume. Financing that buildout is the reason the company raised close to $5 billion in equity across an 18-month stretch in 2024 and 2025. DataBank has not disclosed a single headline enterprise valuation, but its January 2025 secondary sale priced the equity 24% above the prior recapitalization, and its transactions have collectively implied a multi-billion-dollar valuation.

DataBank is a privately held company. Its shares do not trade on any public exchange. Ownership is held by a group of private institutional investors through vehicles that DigitalBridge sponsors and manages. The only publicly traded entity in the structure is DigitalBridge Group itself, which lists on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker DBRG and consolidates DataBank as a portfolio company rather than a wholly owned subsidiary.

The defining feature of DataBank's ownership is the split between control and capital. DigitalBridge is the sponsor and manager. It sources the investors, structures the funds, and retains strategic and operational control of the platform. Yet DigitalBridge's own direct balance-sheet stake has shrunk with each new round, falling to roughly 7.8% after the January 2025 transaction. The majority of the equity is held by the outside institutions that invest alongside it. So DigitalBridge controls DataBank without owning most of it, a common arrangement in the infrastructure fund model.

DataBank's early founders no longer hold meaningful ownership. The company changed hands through private-equity buyers well before its current phase: Avista Capital Partners owned it before selling to DigitalBridge's predecessor, Digital Bridge Holdings, in 2016. Because every subsequent round has been a private institutional transaction, there is no public disclosure of any residual founder equity, and it is reasonable to assume founder stakes were bought out during these ownership changes. DataBank has run a company-wide employee ownership program, but the specific allocation to employees is not publicly disclosed.

DataBank's cap table has been reshaped repeatedly through recapitalizations and equity raises. The table below summarizes the major transactions. Exact ownership percentages for most investors are not public.

DigitalBridge Group is the sponsor and controlling manager. Formerly Colony Capital, it renamed itself in 2021 to reflect its focus on digital infrastructure. It manages a large portfolio of data-center and connectivity platforms and retains control of DataBank despite holding only a single-digit direct equity stake.

AustralianSuper, the Australian pension fund, is the largest single new equity investor. It agreed in October 2024 to commit roughly $1.5 billion, becoming a significant minority owner and taking a seat on DataBank's board. That commitment anchored the broader $2.0 billion raise.

Swiss Life Asset Managers and EDF Invest, the investment arm of French utility EDF, jointly acquired 27% of DataBank's equity for about $1.2 billion in the 2022 to 2023 recapitalization. In December 2025, reporting indicated DigitalBridge would sell a further slice of its stake to Swiss Life in a transaction valued at roughly $1.2 billion, deepening Swiss Life's position.

TJC (formerly The Jordan Company) invested about $250 million in the January 2025 round. Other institutional backers named by DataBank include Nuveen (the investment manager of TIAA), Northleaf Capital Partners, IMCO (the Investment Management Corporation of Ontario), CBRE Caledon, and Ardian. This roster of pension funds, insurers, and infrastructure managers holds the bulk of DataBank's equity in aggregate, though the precise split among them is not publicly reported.

Raul Martynek is the chief executive officer of DataBank and has led the company since 2017, after joining as an operating partner at DigitalBridge's predecessor. He is the central operating figure and also serves in a leadership capacity within the wider DigitalBridge platform. His tenure spans the company's entire expansion from a regional operator to a national edge platform.

Strategic control sits with DigitalBridge as sponsor and manager. DigitalBridge appoints and works alongside DataBank's leadership, and its executives shape the company's capital strategy. As new investors have joined, board representation has expanded: AustralianSuper took a board seat with its 2024 commitment, and other major institutional backers hold governance rights typical of large minority infrastructure investors. DataBank does not publicly disclose its full board composition, so the exact balance of seats between DigitalBridge and its co-investors is not confirmed.

DataBank sits inside a rapidly consolidating market for AI-ready data-center capacity. The pending SoftBank acquisition of DigitalBridge would place DataBank alongside other major platforms such as Switch, Vantage Data Centers, and Yondr under a single investor's indirect influence. Concentrating so much power, land, and compute capacity under a few global players raises questions that regulators in the US and Europe have begun to examine, including grid access, competition, and national-security review of foreign control over critical infrastructure.

The SoftBank takeover of DigitalBridge is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals, with completion expected in the second half of 2026. Because SoftBank is a Japanese acquirer taking control of US-based digital infrastructure, the transaction may draw scrutiny under foreign-investment review. Until it closes, DataBank's ultimate controller remains uncertain, which is itself a governance consideration for the company's customers and co-investors.

Large data-center campuses face growing local opposition and regulatory friction over their electricity and water demands. DataBank's announced campuses in Texas, Virginia, and Georgia require hundreds of megawatts of power, and securing grid connections at that scale has become a gating factor across the industry. These are operational and permitting risks rather than ownership disputes, but they bear directly on the value of the assets its investors hold.

DataBank's ownership structure explains how it has been able to raise close to $5 billion in a short window. Because DigitalBridge acts as a sponsor rather than a sole owner, it can bring in fresh pools of institutional capital round after round without giving up control. Pension funds and insurers get exposure to long-duration infrastructure assets, DigitalBridge keeps the strategic reins, and DataBank gets the balance sheet it needs to build. That model is why the company can commit to gigawatts of new capacity.

The split between control and equity also shapes incentives. DigitalBridge now holds only a small direct stake, yet it still directs the company. Its returns come partly from management fees and from selling down its position at rising valuations, as it did in 2023 and 2025. Investors like AustralianSuper and Swiss Life, by contrast, are in for the long-term cash flows of the underlying real estate. Those differing time horizons can pull in different directions on questions of leverage, expansion pace, and eventual exit.

For customers, the ownership matters because it signals staying power. Deep-pocketed, long-horizon backers reduce the risk that a colocation provider runs short of capital mid-buildout. But the pending acquisition of DigitalBridge by SoftBank introduces a new variable. If it closes, DataBank's controlling sponsor would sit inside one of the world's most aggressive AI-infrastructure investors, which could accelerate expansion but also tie DataBank's direction to SoftBank's broader ambitions.

Finally, the layered structure makes DataBank harder to value from the outside. No single public figure captures the whole company, and the cap table shifts with each transaction. Anyone trying to estimate what DataBank is worth has to work from implied prices in its recapitalizations rather than a quoted market cap, which is a useful reminder of how private infrastructure ownership differs from owning a public stock.

Raul Martynek is the CEO of DataBank. He has led the company since 2017 and previously worked as an operating partner at DigitalBridge's predecessor firm.

No. DataBank is privately held and its shares do not trade on any exchange. The only publicly listed entity in its ownership is DigitalBridge Group, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker DBRG and acts as DataBank's sponsor and manager.

DataBank is controlled by DigitalBridge Group, which sponsors and manages the investment vehicles that hold the company. Most of the equity is owned by a consortium of institutional investors, led by AustralianSuper and including Swiss Life Asset Managers, EDF Invest, Nuveen, TJC, and others. DigitalBridge's own direct stake is about 7.8%.

DataBank was founded in 2005. The company has since passed through several private-equity owners, including Avista Capital Partners, before Digital Bridge Holdings acquired it in 2016, so its original founders no longer hold meaningful ownership.

DataBank raised close to $5 billion in equity across 2024 and 2025. That includes a roughly $2.0 billion round in October 2024 led by a $1.5 billion commitment from AustralianSuper, and a further ~$850 million in January 2025 that included about $250 million from TJC and a ~$600 million secondary sale.

In December 2025, SoftBank Group agreed to acquire DigitalBridge for about $4 billion, a deal expected to close in the second half of 2026. Because DigitalBridge controls DataBank, SoftBank would gain indirect control of the company, subject to regulatory approval.