Rumble acquires German cloud operator Northern Data

US video platform Rumble is acquiring German cloud provider and data center operator Northern Data. Both companies announced this on Monday. As part of the acquisition agreement, the self-proclaimed "Freedom-First" technology platform, which hosts social media service Truth Social by US President Donald Trump, among others, will make a voluntary public stock exchange offer to all Northern Data shareholders. Northern Data is to be delisted after the offer is completed.

Each Northern Data shareholder who accepts the offer will receive 2.0281 newly issued Rumble Class A shares in exchange for each Northern Data share, Rumble explained in a statement. The stock transaction is therefore valued at around 767 million US dollars (663 million euros). Northern Data announced that it will pay its shareholders an additional bonus of 200 million US dollars (around 173 million euros) in cash if it succeeds in selling the crypto mining business in the form of a data center in Corpus Christi at this value before the transaction is completed.

First takeover offer valued higher

All in all, Northern Data shareholders will have to make do with less than announced in the summer. The takeover offer made by Rumble takeover offer made by Rumble in early August was valued at 1.17 billion US dollars (around one billion euros). Rumble wanted, it was said three months ago, to offer 2.319 of its own shares for each Northern Data share.

"An important anchor customer" of the merged company after the transaction is completed will be the cryptocurrency company Tether, operator of the stablecoin of the same name, it is further stated. In February, Tether invested 775 million US dollars in Rumble and currently holds 48 percent of the shares. Tech billionaire Peter Thiel and Narya, a venture capital firm co-founded by JD Vance, the current US Vice President, are also among Rumble's investors. Tether, in turn, is also the majority shareholder in Northern Data with 54 percent.

Expansion into a global provider of cloud services

Through the now announced acquisition of Northern Data, Rumble will receive 22,400 of the coveted Nvidia graphics processors (GPUs) and a globally distributed network of data center locations. "Upon completion of the transaction, Rumble will be able to scale and expand its cloud business by acquiring one of the largest GPU inventories in Europe and a data center business," it states in Rumble's announcement.

Since Northern Data has one of the largest GPU clusters in Europe and Rumble has a strong brand position in the USA, the deal will open up significant opportunities for the merged company, according to Rumble. "Investments in data capacities in Europe, global expansion and increased investments in the USA to tap into the globally growing AI market" are announced.

"The addition of GPUs and data centers to our existing video and cloud portfolio is just the beginning," said Chris Pavlovski, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Rumble. "Our vision is to further expand this ecosystem through new verticals, including financial services like Rumble Wallet, AI chatbots and agents, productivity suites with email and storage, and new web navigation solutions."

(akn)