 This is JSATV Live, the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals. I'm Dean Perine coming to you live on site at Metro Connect 2023, and I'm here with Mr. Ken Perrant. Ken is the CEO of Element Critical. Ken, welcome to JSATV. Hey, thanks for having me. It's great to be here. You bet, you bet. So for our viewers that don't already know, why don't you tell them a little bit about Element Critical? Sure. Well, we're a company that we were formed about 2016, middle of the year. We're a co-location provider. We own and operate our own data centers across the country. Presently, we have six data centers in five markets, two of them in Chicago. So that's the six on five math and looking to continue to grow. But we basically play in that space and folks hybrid IT stack. We provide the best in-class co-location product that we can with a certain amount of services to go along with it, kind of the requisite services that you would have with co-location. So we're not high up the stack. We're not really bomb the stack. We're somewhat in the middle. So you must be doing something right, because I know based on some research that I did prior to this interview that you've had some pretty historical growth over the last 12 to 18 months. Why don't you tell our viewers a little bit about that growth? Why did that happen? Well, it happened because I can hire smarter people than myself. Very, very smart answer to that question. Well, it happened for a number of different reasons. And frankly, the last year that we had, we were leasing into more verticals. We were able to do a couple of hyperscale deals, which was the first time the company has done that. Frankly, the growth that we saw last year probably eclipsed the last three or four years combined. I think we're up 122% quarter over quarter, 85% or so for the full year. So in terms of the actual sales activity, it was phenomenal. And we reconstituted the company in a certain way. We have a new C-suite that we've brought in over the last two years. We brought in some great sales leadership, a new CRO, Steve Weaver. He's brought in some new folks, brought in a new mindset. And I think that's been a lot of it. Frankly, it has been a good year for a lot of people, but I don't think they've achieved quite the numbers that we have. So just the fact that we have a good product, a good market between our team and really execute. And it's the internal infrastructure that we build as well. It's not just a sales organization, but as we know, it's everybody sales in a company like ours. So it's the people in the ground. It's the quality of the technicians, the technical staff. It's everybody that's the responsiveness. So I think the name is getting out there. People know who we are. We continue to grow, be a viable entity. And it's really all about the team, about the product and being in the right markets. No, outstanding. I'm familiar with Steve Weaver, a good guy. I'm glad he's a part of your team over there at Element. You recently announced a partnership with Megaport. They've been around for a long, long time. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that partnership and how it ultimately benefits your customers? Well, everybody knows in this space, interconnection is a big part of the game. So all of our data centers have fairly robust interconnection. A lot of carriers coming into our meet me rooms, connecting them to the outside world. Obviously a big part of the sort of table stakes if you're going to be a good co-location provider. What Megaport does is takes that and really puts that connectivity on steroids. It allows you to basically virtualize every meet me room that Megaport already exists in through their network. So it's really capitalized on kind of the infrastructure that they have built up and gives us a cloud on-ramp. Effectively in all of our data centers where we may not have one today. So today I think they're all in, but they're coming into all of our data centers are not quite there yet, but we intend to have them in all of our data centers in the short run. And they're in at least two or three right now. Outstanding and great. So it allows our customers, I mean basically the finish of the question, it allows our customers to access their network to be anywhere that they need to be. That they can't get through our own network, which is fairly robust isn't it? Yeah, great partnership to have. Absolutely there with Megaport. So I'm going to ask you to take out the crystal ball now. Why don't you tell our viewers a little bit about what they might be able to expect from Element Critical over the next year or even two years from now. Acquisitions, anything, any of the good dirt that you can drop on us now? Yeah, well strategically growing is kind of gets me up in the morning. So it's something that I really enjoy being very involved with, acquiring M&A activity. It's that there's a little bit of a low right now in the market because of the capital market's disruption. So a lot of people are out there selling, but we still seem to have built up a really good pipeline. Been able to do that through marketed and non-marketed deals. Frankly, most of the data centers I've bought in my 10-11 year career have been non-marketed. So we've built up a good network to be able to do that and we have the capital to execute. We're under contract right now for one of the Midwest, so you never can say never. That it's done until it's really done and you're signed. But we're under diligence, so we expect to announce something in the next two to three months there. And basically to answer your question, I think we'll double the size of the footprint in the next two or three years. So if we have six assets today in five markets, I expect to double that within three years, certainly in that timeframe for sure. And then next year or two, add another three or four assets and markets into the portfolio. I love it. Those are lofty goals, but if anything has been proven over the last, again, 12 to 18 months, it's that you can achieve those goals. So congratulations. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, thanks for being with us. We appreciate it. It's a pleasure. You got it. You got it. And thank you viewers for watching JSA TV. We'll see you soon.