Vapor IO adds former Crown Castle exec to its team

Vapor IO, which is developing tower-connected edge colocation services, announced the addition of Alan Bock to its executive team, as vice president of business development, telecommunications. He will focus on carrier relationships as well as relationships in emerging verticals that include autonomous vehicles and smart cities.

Bock is a former VP at telco infrastructure provider Crown Castle. Previously, Bock served in various roles at Crown Castle International, including vice president of corporate development and strategy where he led Crown’s M&A efforts, including the initial investment in Vapor IO. Prior to Crown Castle, Bock held various managerial and finance roles at Cypress Semiconductor and XO Communications. Bock was also recently on the board of directors of the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), a leading consortium of wireless infrastructure in the US.

Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge platform delivers a new category of colocation which will move the intersection of the wireless and wireline networks much closer to the end user. The company recently announced its Series C funding led by Berkshire Partners, with participation from current investor Crown Castle. The funding will be used to build out the nation’s largest collection of colocation data centers and interconnection facilities at the edge of the wireless network.

“Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge is the fastest-growing platform of tower-connected edge data centers. We expect to be in over 100 locations by 2020 and we are on track to become the largest provider of edge colocation and interconnection services,” said Cole Crawford, founder and CEO of Vapor IO. “Alan’s experience and knowledge of the wireless and edge computing industries is second to none, and we are thrilled to have him on the team at Vapor IO to partner with the wireless carriers and help build out our application ecosystem.”