DataBank CFO Kevin Ooley on Financing for Scale in the AI Era

In the latest episode of The Data Center Frontier Show, Editor in Chief Matt Vincent sat down with Kevin Ooley, CFO of DataBank, for a wide-ranging conversation on how capital structure, lender confidence, and disciplined development strategy are shaping DataBank’s growth trajectory in an AI-driven market.

At the center of the discussion was DataBank’s recently expanded development credit facility, an upsizing that offers a revealing window into how banks and institutional investors currently view the data center sector.

A Credit Upsize That Signals Market Confidence

DataBank’s expansion of its primary development credit facility from $725 million to $1.6 billion was more than a refinancing exercise; it was a vote of confidence from the debt markets.

Ooley explained that lenders increasingly see data centers as a uniquely resilient real estate asset class, combining long-duration leases, strong credit tenants, and mission-critical workloads. The facility functions as a pooled, revolving source of capital that DataBank can deploy across multiple projects rather than tying financing to individual assets.

What stood out, Ooley noted, was the level of demand: while DataBank initially targeted a $1.2–$1.3 billion facility, bank appetite reached nearly $2 billion, prompting a disciplined decision to size the final facility at $1.6 billion: large enough to fund growth without carrying excessive undrawn capital.

The Devco Facility: A Conveyor Belt for Development

A key theme of the conversation was DataBank’s so-called “Devco facility,” a purpose-built financing vehicle designed specifically for development-stage assets.

Ooley described it as a conveyor-belt model that supports projects from land acquisition and site work through construction, leasing, and commissioning. Multiple assets can sit at different points along that belt, all supported by the same pooled facility; an approach he likened to a home equity line of credit for data center development.

This flexibility helped DataBank secure more favorable terms, including lower interest rates and extended maturities. The company’s ability to refinance stabilized assets into longer-term vehicles, such as asset-backed securitization (ABS) trusts, frees up capacity in the Devco facility to fund the next wave of builds.

The upsized facility includes commitments from 14 original banks that increased their exposure, plus six new lenders, underscoring broad institutional comfort with DataBank’s execution track record.

Translating Capital Into Concrete Growth

We pressed Ooley to translate balance-sheet strategy into physical expansion. The answer: Scale, but with focus.

DataBank currently operates in roughly 25 U.S. markets, but active investment is concentrated in about 10 of them. Nearly 20 projects are underway across 2025 and 2026, with priority markets including Northern Virginia, Dallas, and Atlanta, which in itself is now firmly emerging as a tier-one market with five operating assets.

Recent additions include a 40-megawatt facility in Dallas and a 20-megawatt, fully pre-leased deployment in Northern Virginia. Collectively, these moves expanded capacity supported by the facility from roughly 60 megawatts to 107 megawatts, with one asset already securitized after stabilization.

This development push is supported by approximately $2 billion in equity raised in late 2024, with capital drawdowns scheduled across 2025 and 2026 to align with construction timelines.

Managing Leverage in a Volatile Rate Environment

While growth is accelerating, Ooley emphasized that DataBank remains highly disciplined on leverage and pricing.

Roughly 80% of DataBank’s expansion comes from existing customers, which creates a steady demand signal, but also requires continuous capacity delivery. To protect returns, DataBank prices capacity based on build costs and prevailing interest rates, ensuring predictability for institutional investors.

Interest-rate exposure is actively managed through hedging and caps, often covering more than half (and sometimes all) of variable-rate exposure. Once assets mature, DataBank typically refinances them into fixed-rate ABS notes with five- or seven-year terms, locking in cash flow visibility.

Positioning for Enterprise and AI Demand

The Devco facility also gives DataBank strategic optionality in the AI era. Ooley described it as a line of credit that allows the company to accelerate or pause development without renegotiating project-level financing each time customer demand shifts.

Notably, DataBank is not chasing remote, power-rich locations purely for AI training. Instead, it is doubling down on “NFL cities,” where enterprise and hyperscale customers need proximity, latency control, and reliability.

DataBank’s role, Ooley stressed, is to deliver power, buildings, and uptime. Customers bring their own GPUs. That model is proving attractive as enterprise AI adoption accelerates, particularly in regulated sectors such as healthcare and financial services.

Banking, Equity, and Long-Term Sponsorship

The conversation also highlighted the breadth of DataBank’s capital relationships. TD Bank led the Devco facility, alongside joint lead arrangers including Citizens, CoBank, Deutsche Bank, MUFG, and Société Générale, with additional participation from major global banks.

On the equity side, DigitalBridge has been DataBank’s primary sponsor since 2016. Over the past several years, DataBank has raised roughly $2 billion from institutional investors including Swiss Life, EMCO, and Northleaf, followed by another $2 billion raise last year led by AustralianSuper and TJC.

Watching the Signals That Matter

As the discussion wrapped, Ooley returned to fundamentals. DataBank closely tracks local-market supply and demand, lease velocity, pre-leasing trends, renewal pricing, and build costs. Internal metrics, including a net promoter score currently in the mid-to-upper 60s, help gauge customer satisfaction and retention.

The pace of future growth, he noted, will ultimately be dictated by real demand from enterprise and hyperscale customers, and not by capital availability alone.

In an environment where AI headlines often outpace fundamentals, the conversation offered a grounded view of how disciplined financing, flexible development structures, and market-by-market execution are enabling DataBank to scale without losing balance.

At Data Center Frontier, we talk the industry talk and walk the industry walk. In that spirit, DCF Staff members may occasionally use AI tools to assist with content. Elements of this article were created with help from OpenAI's GPT5.

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