Last week, just as the ink on their new defence IT contact was still drying, founder and chairman of Canberra Data Centres, Ken Lowe, sold 45 per cent of his company to private equity, netting him a fortune on paper of about $100 million.
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His lieutenant and part-owner, chief executive officer Greg Boorer is a Canberra convert and says the company's success is a sign of the increasingly exciting local tech scene.
"The tech scene in Canberra is one of the most vibrant, this is the Silicon Valley of Australia there is so many amazing stories that have come out of Canberra. Tower Software, now Intelledox, little companies that have started exporting all around the world," Mr Boorer said.
He said CDC's success might seem out of the blue, however the journey has not been so speedy.
"It was a bit of a leap of faith. Ken was the person who put the money up and there was a number of local people who also did and put their houses on the line as well as me," Mr Boorer said.
He said building the "very complex" data centres had cost the company about $300 million over a seven-year period.
"We were close to bankruptcy a couple of times, we were lucky to win contracts that enabled us to keep the creditors at bay, and we eventually got more and more traction and got on a bit of a roll and that roll hasn't really stopped," he said.
As announced in mid-September, the company is one of the smaller fry to win sub-contracting roles in the Defence Department's Central Processing Project, an IT outsourcing project which began in 2011.
The project aims to consolidate secret, classified and unclassified information currently in 280 data centres down to 11.
CDC's founder, the private Mr Lowe, established his first business ASI Solutions with his wife Maree, and reportedly gave up a new kitchen to keep it afloat in the early years.
Meanwhile his to-be business partner Mr Boorer was off in Europe living the expat banker life in Germany working on data centres.
Then suddenly their luck changed when his wife, Australian champion cyclist Margaret Hemsley, fell spectacularly in a cacophony of gravel and blood in the 2002 Commonwealth Games, foiling her chances of gold.
After some hard thinking, Mr Boorer was hired by Mr Lowe and the couple decided in 2006 it was time to head home.
"I loved living in Europe, but I grew up doing a lot of sport and Canberra is a mecca for that, and we have four boys now and you couldn't find a better place for to bring up a family," Mr Boorer said.
"My expat mates in Tokyo and London are like, 'what, you're living in Canberra?' And I say, it's fantastic, I love the place, but don't tell anyone – we don't want too many other people here," Mr Boorer said.
For now the company, and its founder's fortunes are likely to grow – indeed, CDC is planning to open a third facility next year in addition to the two they currently operate in Hume.
