Keel jumps 10% after former bitcoin miner hires data center veteran as president

Shares of the Nasdaq-listed Keel Infrastructure (KEEL) climbed 10% in the first hour of trading on Monday after the former bitcoin miner turned AI infrastructure company appointed former Digital Realty executive Ganesh Aiyer as president to lead its next phase of growth.

Aiyer most recently served as chief business officer at Digital Realty, one of the world's largest data center real estate investment trusts, where he led commercial strategy and business center operations across hyperscale, cloud and enterprise customers. He also previously held senior leadership positions at Schneider Electric and Dell Technologies, according to his LinkedIn profile.

According to a Monday release, Aiyer will oversee the company's "commercial and pipeline expansion activities."

"Ganesh has a strong track record of execution and understands how to build go-to-market strategies around differentiated products," CEO Ben Gagnon said in a statement. In a post on X, Gagnon added that Aiyer had "executed at the highest level for two decades at one of the world's largest data center platforms" and would help steer the company's next phase of growth as a provider of high-performance computing power and AI infrastructure. 

It's another big step in Keel's shift away from bitcoin mining following its April rebrand from Bitfarms. 

During its first earnings report under the Keel name in May, the company reported a $145 million first-quarter net loss as it continued to restructure operations, exited Latin America and funneled capital towards AI infrastructure development in North America. 

At the time, Keel said it had approximately $533 million in liquidity to fund new projects.

Despite the transition costs, investors are continuing to support the new strategy. Keel shares have gained more than 120% since the April 6 rebrand, according to The Block's equities price data.