The colocation and interconnection services provider has grown its data center footprint since being acquired by private equity firm GI Partners in 2006, and now operates 15 facilities with more than 480,000 square feet of data center space. Telx also owns the 56 Marietta carrier hotel in Atlanta, one of the primary connection hubs in that market.

Telx is not profitable, but its revenue has grown from $50.8 million in 2007 to $98.3 million in 2009, the company said in its IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company lost $9.9 million in 2009, an improvement from losses of $31.3 million in 2008 and $37.2 million in 2007.

Its 763 customers include AT&T, HP, Yahoo, CBS and NASA, along with servioce providers like SoftLayer, Level 3, iland Internet, Cogent and Qwest. Those customers have a total of 28,272 physical interconnections through Telx facilities, the company said.

Telx has steadily expanded its colocation footprint over the past two years, adding space in Dallas, New York, New Jersey, San Francisco and Chicago.

Telx says the IPO funds would allow it to invest in increasing the network densities in its data centers to support additional customer growth. It also indicated that it may seek to grow through acquisitions.

“We believe our industry has favorable consolidation characteristics and we expect this trend to continue in the foreseeable future,” the company said in its SEC filing. “Given the limited availability of interconnection and colocation facilities within tier-1 markets, acquisitions of existing businesses may provide a cost-effective method of increasing network densities, expanding our customer base and broadening our geographic footprint. We intend to pursue attractive opportunities as they arise.”

Goldman, Sachs & Co and Deutsche Bank Securities are leading the underwriters. The company is expected to trade on the Nasdaq under the symbol “TELX.”

AboveNet connects London and New York. AboveNet (ABVT) has launched a low latency end-to-end transatlantic connection between financial centers in London and New York. Seeing a demand for low latency transatlantic connectivity, AboveNet says it can now offer latency gurarantees on this premium service as low as sub-1ms round-trip for access to hundreds of buildings in the New York and London metro markets. “Adding the low latency capability between New York and London is a natural extension of our industry-leading Agility Guarantee program,” said AboveNet Chief Technology Officer Rajiv Datta. “In addition, we can now provide high bandwidth connectivity between London and our 16 U.S. markets for a broad range of customer applications.”

Equinix connects Two cities in The Netherlands.  Equinix (EQIX) announced the connection of its International Business Exchange (IBX) data centers, located in Zwolle (ZW1) and Enschede (EN1), to the Amersterdam-based Netherlands Internet Exchange (NL-ix).  “In view of our substantial growth ambitions, the NL-ix connection of the Equinix data center in Amsterdam, set up a year ago, was a very logical step for us. Following our excellent experience of partnering with Equinix, we didn’t have to think twice about connecting its data centers in Zwolle and Enschede to the NL-ix,” said Mar Gauw, NL-ix Commercial Director. ZW1 and EN1 data centers target small to medium size businesses but can also serve as a business continuity / fall-back location for the Equinix AM1 Amsterdam IBX center, which is one of the world’s largest single metro area Internet exchanges.

Telx expands colo with Hypercube. Telx announced that HyperCube, a premier provider of local and national tandem services to the nation’s largest carriers, has established a colocation center within Telx’s Miami, Florida facility. By doing this HyperCube will reduce backhaul network costs and it will allow them to offer their full set of services to the Miami market. Doug Davis, chief technology officer of HyperCube said “after evaluating several colocation providers in Miami, we found it to be the broadest carrier ecosystem in the area, providing us with more connectivity choices via a simple cross-connection.”

Telx selected by SoftLayer as partner. Colocation provider Telx announced that they have been selected as a connectivity partner by SoftLayer.  SoftLayer has a presence in Atlanta and New York City Telx facilities.  Telx interconnection services provide the security, reduced latency and minimal number of hops on the network for SoftLayer. “Today, our customers can directly tap into our infrastructure on a guaranteed, high-speed connection without going over the public Internet,” said George Karidis, chief strategy officer at SoftLayer. “The Telx solution provides high redundancy, security, and limitless scalability,”

Next-Generation 100G field trial. Verizon (VZ), Juniper Networks (JNPR), NEC Corporation of America, and Finisar Corp. (FNSR) announced the successful completion of the first real traffic 100 gigabits per second (100G) optical fiber transmission field trial applying standards-based optics end-to-end and using the latest in 100G native router interfaces.  The field trial took place in the north Dallas area, over a 1,520 kilometer optically amplified section of the Verizon network.  Stefan Dyckerhoff, executive vice president and general manager, infrastructure products group at Juniper noted that “trends such as cloud computing, data center consolidation and virtualization are making the need for 100G more acute and urgent than ever before.”  The demonstration included live video traffic, through a 100G interface on the Juniper T1600 Core Router to the NEC SpectraWave DWDM system.  Between the router and the DWDM system was an IEEE standard-compliant 100GBASE-LR4 client interface, using 100G CFP optical transceiver modules from Finisar Corp.

Force10 selected by Budapest Internet Exchange. Force 10 Networks announced that the Budapest Internet Exchange (BIX) has selected the E-Series switch/routers to provide highly reliable performance and unmatched scalability for its growing customer base of Internet Service Providers and telcos in Hungary and Eastern Europe. “As the largest Internet Exchange in Eastern Europe, we faced a 66 percent increase of Internet traffic per year in the recent years,” says Zoltan Kalmar, president of the BIX Committee. “The Force10 E-Series provided us with the non-blocking line-rate fabric we required in order to offer our customers highly reliable and predictable performance, while delivering the high 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE) density that ensures we have the right network backbone in place to handle our ever-growing traffic needs in the future.”  BIX leveraged the E1200 because of total throughput and scalability of up to 1,260 GbE and 224 10 GbE ports per chassis with access control lists on all ports.

GlobeNet and Alcatel-Lucent complete submarine cable system. Alcatel Lucent (ALU) and GlobeNet announced the completion of the upgrade of the 22,000 kilometer submarine cable system linking the U.S. with Latin America.  This enables GlobeNet to deliver more than 100 Gigabits per second of capacity.  In addition to upgrading the submarine sections and landing points in North and South America, the submarine network also integrates with the terrestrial optical infrastructure of GlobeNet’s parent company, Oi (TNE). “This network upgrade provides GlobeNet with the extra capacity needed to support advanced services, while keeping its network easy to manage,” stated Philippe Dumont, General Manager of Alcatel-Lucent’s submarine network activity.

“As demand for colocation space on the West Coast continues to increase, Telx remains committed to helping our customer base reduce the cost of network expansion and increase speed to market,” said Eric Shepcaro, CEO of Telx. “Our Los Angeles facility is a strategically located, high-density connectivity hub that can immediately meet the latency, security and services requirements of the most demanding cloud computing, media and entertainment, gaming and financial services environments.”

The new space is the second expansion in less than a year for Telx at the 600 West 7th Street carrier, following an addition last fall.

“56 Marietta Street’s roots are that of the pre-eminent carrier hotel in the Southeast and have long served the wide variety of prominent enterprise companies that call Atlanta home,” said Michael Terlizzi, Executive Vice President of Operations for Telx. “The transition of this space from low-density, high-interconnection to high-density, high-interconnection adds tremendous value to our customers and is unparalleled in the colocation and interconnection marketplaces.”

The addition of new power capacity was welcomed by providers offering services within Telx’s space at 56 Marietta. “Telx’s additional power allows Colocube to provide higher density managed service solutions to our customers,” said Matt Elkourie, CTO of high-performance IT hosting and IP services provider Colocube. “The addition of this high-density power and added space will help us to meet and exceed our customers’ needs, both now and in the future as technology continues to evolve.”

“Our new expansion space at 600 West 7th offers the latest in power optimization and raised-floor cooling to ensure minimal environmental impact, while providing some of the highest power densities and proximity capabilities in the West Coast data center market,” said J. Todd Raymond, Senior Vice President of Site Acquisitions for Telx.

The expansion will double the company’s square footage and available cabinets at 350 East Cermak, a 1.1 million square foot facility owned by Digital Realty Trust (DLR).

“Low latency connectivity and high-volume high performance interconnection remain in strong demand, especially in major financial hubs such as Chicago,” said Chris Downie, President and CFO of Telx.

The Telx operation at 350 East Cermak houses the Telx Financial Xchange, offering direct connections to more than 30 of the industry’s leading exchanges, trading platforms, and financial service companies. Telx says the new space will yield 10,000 square feet of sellable space.

“Telx and Digital Realty Trust have a long-standing valued relationship as the MMR operator in ten of our Internet Gateways,” said Chris Crosby, Senior Vice President at Digital Realty Trust. “With the growing data center demand and diminished supply available in downtown Chicago, Telx is well-prepared to serve customers requiring quick deployment and dense interconnections in the premier data center facility in Chicago.”

The three companies serve slightly different geographies and user bases. Telx has a strong historic position providing cross-connects for telecom providers in carrier hotels in major cities, while Equinix focuses on peering and interconnections in major Internet and financial markets, and Switch and Data is the leading provider in second-tier markets.     

“This milestone is proof that Telx is a strong leader in the colocation and interconnection services industry and is providing a valuable, cost-effective solution for businesses needing to connect to multiple carriers, service providers and enterprises,” said Eric Shepcaro, Chief Executive Officer for Telx. “Outsourcing space and connectivity to third-party experts such as Telx, which can provide extremely low latency connectivity and efficient cross-connections at an effective price point and low overhead, is a growing trend, especially for companies in the financial services and software-as-a-service sectors, which require high reliability and low latency to maintain a competitive edge in business.”

Telx also confirmed this week that chief marketing officer Tesh Durvasula has left the company. Durvasula was a co-founder of NYC Connect, which was acquired by Telx in 2007.

“Telx is fully committed to providing superior Internet Exchange points within its facilities, and as a result have chosen to launch the next phases of our Internet Exchanges in the New York and Dallas markets,” said Michael Lucking, Director of IP Development and Engineering. Telx has existing TIE peering nodes in Atlanta and Phoenix.

CIT, which made the loan through its Communications, Media & Entertainment group, has been a financing partner for Telx since 2007, while RBC Capital Markets is a new lender. The lenders cited Telx’s sustained growth, strong business model and customer base, and the strength of the data center market as a whole. Telx reported 39 percent revenue growth in the first quarter of 2008, compared to the same period last year.

Telx said its business plan was fully funded under its former financing, and the new deal provides “significant opportunities to enhance capabilities and explore new technologies that will expand the services that Telx is able to offer its customers.”

Telxplans to use the additional funding to expand in existing cities to meet ongoing customer demand. The company has steadily expanded its colocation footprint over the past two years, adding space in Dallas, New York, New Jersey, San Francisco and Chicago.

Telx, which has a strong focus on connectivity-rich financial market hubs, said it will also “give consideration to entrance into new markets as needed.” Since the company already has operations in New York and Chicago, potential new markets might include European financial centers like London or Frankfurt.   

“Despite a challenging economy, Telx continues to experience solid revenue growth across multiple market verticals,” said Chris Downie, President and Chief Financial Officer for Telx. “The company’s business model has proven itself not only viable, but strong, and we expect to continue to deliver the same positive results in the coming years based on industry demand for colocation and interconnection services in our facilities. We’re pleased to have CIT and RBC, who each has an in-depth knowledge of our industry, as our financial partners and appreciate their support for our continued business endeavors.”

“We were pleased to arrange this financing for Telx, which has experienced significant growth over the past four years,” said Joseph E. Junda, Senior Director of CIT Communications, Media & Entertainment. “This transaction represents our continued support for companies in the growing telecommunications sector.”