KOP Insiders: Kevin Mulqueen, CEO of DāSTOR, LLC

KOP Insiders delves into the stories of the people who make King of Prussia one of Pennsylvania’s most dynamic live-work-play-stay destinations.

In depth interviews provide insight into the companies that make up our diverse business community and put a face to the individuals behind the business. In this edition, we are joined by Kevin Mulqueen, CEO of DāSTOR, LLC.

Can you give us a little information on your background and about your company, DāSTOR?

I started in the Voice and Data Communications industry back in 1991. I am originally from Delaware County and grew up in Chester Heights, PA. I attended Malvern Prep and from there I graduated with a Business Degree from Merrimack University in North Andover, MA. I landed my first job with a regional telecommunications provider, ATX Communications, and stayed there for about 14 years. My experience at ATX was amazing and life changing and put me in a position to start my own business. In the early 2000’s, I founded Cross Connect Solutions (CCS) out of 401 N. Broad Street in Philadelphia. CCS was a multi-tenant co-location provider, meaning we offered a secure, well connected and environmentally conditioned space for our customers’ mission critical infrastructure, where they ran the applications and workloads that powered their businesses. In late 2010, I sold CCS to Sidera Networks and we quickly merged with Lightower Fiber networks. I invested back into the business and stayed on to manage the entire data center business, which was comprised of about 100 facilities around the country.

About six years ago, Lightower was sold to Crown Castle, and I retired a year later. In 2020, COVID happened, and I was ready to do something again. At the same time, I started to get inquiries about different data center businesses that needed an operator. We ended up acquiring the assets of a few existing businesses and combined them to create DāSTOR, LLC.  The assets included multi-tenant data centers, but also an extensive product set supporting private cloud, data backup, data storage platforms and security solutions. Our traditional colocation offerings are now complimented by these value-added solutions, all of which are operated out of our four (4) Tier 3 data centers. Of the four (4) data centers, two (2) are in King of Prussia, one off Swedeland Road and the other in Renaissance Park on Horizon Drive.

DāSTOR has officially been in business for over two years and has 27 employees, and we provide infrastructure services and private cloud services to businesses across all our data center facilities.

Tell us about your location at 411 Swedeland Road and how it’s unique to your business.

Discovery Labs invited us to their facility two years ago for a tour. Upon visiting we realized that this would be a great location to support life science and technology companies who work on the campus.  We knew we could design the data center with industry-specific solutions to encourage collaboration between the life sciences and technology companies, to enable better outcomes for everyone. Besides the ecosystem created by Discovery Labs, this facility also includes abundant power and cooling capacity, with multiple sources of power feeding the building, which is fundamental to operating a data center. The only remaining concern was access to multiple fiber networks, to support the diverse connectivity needs of the campus customers, and this location has plenty of fiber as well.  DāSTOR plans to have this facility up and running by the end of 2025.

What makes KOP a good fit for your employees and company culture?

About half of our employees work in the area or float between our data centers. As we continue to grow, it’s important to us that our staff can easily access our different sites. Being in KOP makes a huge difference because of the convenience. It’s so much easier than going into the city every day (which is exactly why we decided to locate our headquarters here as well).  Having our offices between three major arteries–the Turnpike, 76, and 202–makes it pretty easy to get around.

But it’s not just accessibility. King of Prussia also has so many great amenities, including great restaurants to entertain new or existing clients. We can bring prospects into KOP, give tours of our facilities and show folks our operation, and then there’s always a spot for us to go lunch around the corner. There are also plenty of hotels to support our traveling work force and customers as well.  Additionally, the large number of businesses located here helps support our company, too, as B2B is a critical component of our business plan.

From a technical perspective, years ago, all the network fiber landed in major NFL cities and there were limited facilities outside those major metros, but now that’s changed and there’s an extensive fiber network throughout the area. That fiber puts King of Prussia in a very nice position for companies considering moving their infrastructure from the city into the suburbs.

How does KOP factor into your company’s growth?

Beyond just growing out the existing business infrastructure, we are hiring more people. I believe King of Prussia is an attractive location to prospective talent because it is a nice safe area that is easily accessible from the surrounding area to live and work.

What are some of your favorite things to do in KOP?

Of course, the restaurants are fantastic, and there’s plenty of variety. We are also excited about the new Topgolf and have already planned to host events for customers there. For group settings, there’s a wide range of opportunities and everything is local, so there is no need to travel a great distance. King of Prussia Mall is legendary and has always been known for shopping.

What advice would you give to someone thinking about moving their company to KOP?

Ultimately, it’s a great location. It’s convenient. It’s safe. We’ve been here two years and it’s been perfect in so many ways. As our employees have come back to work, they like the location. It makes life easier and it’s just a great spot.

The floor is yours. Tell us anything you’d like to share about yourself, KOP, or DāSTOR.

DāSTOR is a hybrid cloud/colocation business. That means we support enterprises in every industry providing both the physical environments for their infrastructure as well as virtual environments as they work towards their cloud strategy. We are providing an ecosystem for companies to navigate their data infrastructure from on-site to cloud.

We are a privately held “boutique” data center business that operates all our own facilities and manage all the services within those facilities ourselves. By providing these services to customers, we are helping business manage their data with a strong focus on compliance, risk mitigation and customer service.  We assist enterprise businesses in building a cloud strategy to move their business forward.

About DāSTOR

DāSTOR, a scalable enterprise environments company, provides data center and cloud solutions that leverage foundational infrastructure and interconnectivity to drive scalable, and reliable digital services. With DāSTOR, customers seamlessly connect to partners and clients to drive better digital outcomes.

3400 Horizon Drive
King of Prussia, PA 19406
dastorllc.com