After a quiet stretch in the SPAC market, we pressed pause on this column. But with deal flow picking up, targets getting more creative, and sponsors back in hunting mode, it’s the right time to bring back one of our favorites: the Top 3 SPAC Targets. Read on to see who we picked for data centers!

Data centers being a hot sector is far from news in the current environment, but despite the massive demand for digital infrastructure capacity to meet the expected AI needs, there have actually been relatively few deals struck in the space.

One reason for this could be the diverse capital options that data center operators and technology providers have available to them. But, the largest SPAC deal struck in the space continues to be the gold standard for SPAC performance overall in GS I’s 2020 tie-up with Vertiv (NYSE:VRT), which last closed at $173.37.

DataBank

If a SPAC were to want to go big in this space once again, DataBank would be near the top of their list.

By total data center count in its network, Blackridge Research & Consulting ranked it earlier this month as the fifth largest data center company in the US. On this list, it sits just below listed behemoths like Digital Realty (NYSE:DLR) and Equinix (NASDAQ:EQIX) as well as QTS Data Centers, which was acquired by Blackstone for $10 billion in 2021.

It operates 75 data centers in the US and UK with about 1 GW of total IT load and a total population of 209 million people within 100 miles of at least one of its computing facilities. It offers clients a variety of options for how they connect with this infrastructure ranging from a traditional cloud approach or more granular options like “bare metal” setups.

It also offers colocation space for clients and has layers of hardware, software and cybersecurity services on top of its data center capacity offerings.

This impressive scale doesn’t necessarily mean that DataBank would be too big to swallow for a SPAC, and, in fact, the company’s complex ownership structure may provide a unique value opportunity for both sides.

Originally founded in 2005, DataBank has transitioned between several private equity owners, most recently DigitalBridge Group, which built it up as a platform company. In 2023, DigitalBridge sold a 27% stake in the company to Swiss Life Asset Management and EDF Invest for $1.2 billion in cash, and retirement fund AustralianSuper bought out other existing investors to become a “significant minority owner” of the firm via a $2 billion transaction last year.

Although it is not certain what a fair public-market valuation of DataBank’s equity would be, but it is reasonable to suspect a listing would provide upside to this coterie of institutional investors given the ramp-up in demand, while also providing them unique liquidity options.

Green Mountain

Not all data centers are built the same and not all investors and downstream users are interested in the same features as well.

While DataBank does have a number of facilities available that run on renewable power, Green Mountain runs its entire network of data center sites with 100% renewable sources. These four sites, located in Norway, Germany and the UK range in power capacity from 25 MW to 75 MW, making each of them a large-scale affair.

By comparison, the Inner Mongolia Information Park in China, which is considered to be the single largest data center in the world, consumes about 150 MW and a 75 MW facility would likely rank among the top 5 data centers in the US.

But, those are not Green Mountain’s only differentiators. The company’s SVG1 data center located in Rennesøy, Norway was built deep underground in what had formerly been a high-security NATO ammunition storage debut. This former purpose means that the bunker-like facility is built to withstand a direct nuclear strike, while still being remarkably eco-friendly. It uses water from an adjacent fjord as its cooling source and heat generated from the facility supports a nearby lobster farm.

Niche perhaps, but there are certain types of clients in national security, governments or simply paranoid types that would want their compute shielded from the worst-case scenarios and Green Mountain allows them to colocate their own hardware there.

Like DataBank, Green Mountain may also have a willing seller as it was acquired by Israeli real estate firm Azrieli Group for about $850 million in 2021. Unlike some of the private owners in this space like Blackstone that may see long-term strategic value in their data center investments, Azrieli seems to have bought it with real estate sensibilities and could be comfortable flipping the investment for a profit. Two years ago, the Azrieli Group sold its stake in US-based data center firm Compass for a tidy $900 million.

Nautilus Data Technologies

SPAC teams have an irrepressible flair for creativity when it comes to finding angles on interesting sectors, however. Nautilus Data Technologies may be the choice for a team wanting to bring forward a deal that thinks even further outside of the box.

While Green Mountain offers data centers deep underground, Nautlius Data Technologies thought, why not put them out at sea?

This notion was not meant to satisfy a science fiction itch, but rather to solve the water consumption problem that data centers pose. Large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day, which is roughly the equivalent of a small town. In addition to causing large environmental impacts, this also necessitates massive infrastructure spending to ensure that flow of water to facilities.

To mitigate this, Nautilus designed “zero-water” setups for data centers that could ride aboard barges or offshore facilities, effectively cycling in water for cooling and allowing it to return to the bodies of water without evaporating it or sending it down the pipes to wastewater facilities.

This is not a completely novel idea. Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) in fact launched its Project Natick underwater data center in the North Sea to test a similar concept in 2020.

But rather than wait for an age of waterborne data centers, Nautilus has also taken what it has learned to offer a range of modular liquid cooling rigs for land-based data centers that can leverage the same open loop efficiencies.

Nautilus has raised $223 million dating back to 2020, according to Tracxn, most recently a $2 million Series D add-on in February 2025 that expanded the $77.9 million it raised from the start of that round in 2024.