Austin's Vapor IO raises $90 million to expand computing platform

Technology startup Vapor IO has closed on a $90 million investment to build out its edge computing platform.

The Austin-based company received the funding round from private equity firm Berkshire Partners and wireless infrastructure company Crown Castle.

Vapor IO previously raised an undisclosed amount of funding from investors including Goldman Sachs and Austin-based AVX Partners.

Edge computing brings computation and data storage closer to the location where it is needed to improve response times and save bandwidth.

Founded in 2015, Vapor IO began by designing software and hardware for micro data centers and edge computing.

Vapor IO’s flagship product is the Kinetic Edge platform, which the company says is the first nationwide hardware and software platform for edge colocation and networking services.

Kinetic Edge is available in Chicago, Atlanta, Pittsburgh and Dallas, and Vapor IO plans to enter 16 new markets this year. The goal is to be in 36 U.S. metropolitan markets, including Austin, by the end of 2021, the company said.

“With a total of 36 multi-site markets coming online over the next 24 months, we expect to be the largest provider of edge colocation, edge networking and edge exchange services in close proximity to the last mile networks,” Cole Crawford, founder and CEO of Vapor IO, said in a written statement.

Meanwhile, Vapor IO announced it has signed a deal with network security giant Cloudflare that will deliver Cloudflare’s services on Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge platform.

“Vapor IO has the key ingredients to deliver critical edge computing infrastructure to the top U.S. metropolitan markets,” said Josh Johnson, principal at Berkshire Partners. “We believe they have the technology, expertise, and access to the required land and fiber to build a nationwide footprint.”

The Vapor IO funding is the second major round for an Austin-area company this month, following last week’s announcement of a $60 million funding round by FlashParking, which develops technology for managing parking lots.