The Cool Vector editorial team welcomes Ted Manvitz, Managing Director and Head of International Investments at Grain Management, for a wide ranging conversation about digital infrastructure investing in non-US markets, as well as Manvitz’s professional history of investing in asset around the world.

Also gathered for the episode are Hadassa Lutz, a Partner at Cloud2Ground, Phillip Koblence, CEO of Critical Ventures and a Co-Founder of Nomad Futurist Foundation, Nabeel Mahmood, Co-Founder of Nomad Futurist, and David Snow, Host of Cool Vector.

The discussion starts with an overview of Grain’s activities around the world, including in Germany and Southeast Asia. Manvitz shares his learnings from building up tower assets in emerging markets prior to joining Grain. The team also discusses the importance of establishing in-person relationships with regulators and government leaders in target markets.

Among the key takeaways of this episode:

• Grain Management is systematically building international exposure — across Western Europe, Southeast Asia, and emerging markets where it has decades of operational history — on the thesis that the buildout of digital infrastructure outside the US is still in its earliest chapters, allowing for development-stage valuations and exit into an expected consolidation wave.

• Power is the new gating factor for international data center investment, eclipsing connectivity as the primary site-selection criterion — and investors who can’t solve for it locally simply can’t play.

• Manvitz argues his middle-market sweet spot of sub-50-megawatt deployments in tier-two cities is quietly emerging as a more defensible international strategy than chasing hyperscale gigawatt projects.

• Some governments in Africa and South America are considering the embrace of nuclear energy as a way to leapfrog into the digital infrastructure market, because these markets have otherwise insufficient power options.

• In Southeast Asia, investors are betting that the region will replay the same consolidation arc the US and Europe already ran — with today’s small-platform entry points becoming tomorrow’s regional-scale exit opportunities.

• Conflict in the Middle East hasn’t dimmed the region’s long-term appeal as a data center destination; if anything, it has reinforced the universal case for geographic redundancy.

Grain Management is Going Global One Relationship at a Time

Cool Vector

Grain Management is Going Global One Relationship at a Time