Halyard Capital, a New York-based private equity firm, has announced the formation of Digital Fortress, a new data center colocation platform, along with two initial acquisitions of digital.forest, Inc. and Fortress Colocation Services. Headquartered in Seattle, Digital Fortress capitalizes on the underserved market of regional small to medium sized enterprises seeking to enhance their overall IT infrastructure capabilities through outsourcing with colocation service providers. The company is also well-positioned to meet the growing demand among national corporations for data centers that have access to abundant low-cost electricity with a high concentration of renewable energy.

Recognizing the favorable industry secular trends of: i) supply/demand imbalance; ii) IT outsourcing; iii) growth in Internet traffic and bandwidth demand; and iv) an increased focus on disaster recovery and regulatory demands, Halyard has been proactively pursuing investment opportunities within the IT Infrastructure & Services sector. Halyard has significant experience with data center infrastructure and IP networking solutions businesses, having previously been an investor in Inflow Communications.