Silver Lake Sunday accepted a deal for the purchase a minority shareholding in Brazilian Web hosting firm, Locaweb. The exact details regarding the finances involved were however undisclosed. The minority stake is expected to give the buyout firm, Silver Lake, an opportunity to take advantage of the vast growth opportunities in Brazil, currently the fifth biggest internet market globally. Brazil also has the fastest growing economy, with lots of opportunities in the IT and ITES market segment.

With regard to the most recent statistics, the Brazilian firm, Locaweb hosts one in every four sites with the “.com.br” domain root. The purchase was undertaken by Silver Lake Sumeru, Silver Lake’s private equity fund segment that is responsible for investments in mid-sized technology firms. The firm reported it had made the acquisition but did not reveal at what amount the investment had been done. Sumeru has about $14 billion of investors’ money in Nasdaq OMX, Avaya, Skype and other technology companies.

There has been an increased foray into Brazil by major global technology firms, as they seek to make use of the projected explosive growth in the country in family income and jobs. Other than that, most major firms are making Brazilian acquisitions to make use of the burgeoning interest in online commerce and mobility solutions. It is estimated that the number of Web domains is increasing at an average growth rate of 27 per cent per annum in the country. Brazil is Latin America’s biggest economy and the firm believes there is room for further growth, it said.

Other than this acquisition, Silver Lake is mulling additional investments in the country’s information technology industry, even though the firm has not revealed more details. Locaweb plans to use proceeds from the Silver Lake investment to beef up a second data center that it built last year. The investment will also help increase its supply of cloud servers, which let Locaweb customers use the Internet to store information. The funds could also help fuel growth through acquisitions.

Begun twelve years ago, Locaweb has posted annual revenue increases of about 40 percent every year. The company earned 131 million reais ($76 million) from sales last year. Locaweb sprouted alongside other software and hardware makers in Brazil in the late 1990s, when entrepreneurs emboldened by the dot-com boom foresaw a surge in demand for technology services.