Broadband provider awarded £25m investment to scale up operations
Cheshire-based fibre broadband provider 4th Utility has secured £25m in investment from DIF Capital Partners as it prepares to embark on another period of growth and bring ultra-fast fibre broadband to more homes in the UK.
The funding from DIF Capital Partners represents a long-term investment and a new partnership, with the capital being used to scale up the rollout of commercial grade fibre broadband to more residential properties.
Hale-based 4th Utility has its own last mile fibre optic network – capable of delivering ultrafast broadband speeds of up to 1Gbps – and will use this to deliver new, ultra-fast broadband connections.
Typically, new customers are online within 60 seconds of signing up to the service, compared with the usual five working days offered by other providers where engineers are often required to activate the service.
Tony Hughes, 4th Utility chief executive, said: “The partnership with DIF Capital Partners is a significant milestone for our business and gives us a fantastic platform to deliver ultrafast internet access to many more properties across the UK.
“The team at DIF share our desire to invest in high-quality fibre infrastructure and our ambition is to use this funding to become one of the leading broadband providers in the UK, ensuring thousands of new customers can benefit from full fibre connectivity.”
Chief technology officer at 4th Utility, Jimmy Acton, said: “We are passionate about the customer journey and in the same way Uber changed booking a taxi, we’ve replicated that for residential fibre broadband.
“When you move into a new home you would expect that all of the utilities work straight away.
“We very much see broadband as the essential fourth utility, so we’ve created a solution that means super-fast full fibre broadband can be ready to go from day one.
“Our tech stack is built, it’s already live in hundreds of homes and now we’re ready to expand with this new funding in place.”
A broadband pledge formed a major part of the Conservatives’ election manifesto at the end of 2019 and earlier this year, Chancellor Rishi Sunak confirmed the Government would pump £5bn into its plan to roll out full-fibre broadband across the UK.
As well as domestic installations, 4th Utility also partners with residential and commercial landlords, property developers and house builders to design, install and upgrade their properties with state-of-the-art FTTP infrastructure, bringing homes a future-proof standard of connectivity.
Willem Jansonius, head of DIF Capital Partners, said: “We are pleased to bring our experience in digital infrastructure to support 4th Utility and their management team in delivering FTTP infrastructure investment to underserved properties in the UK.”
Property developers, including The McGoff Group, Crest Nicholson, David Wilson Homes and Fortis Group, are among those to have already agreed broadband partnerships with 4th Utility.
The company also has former British & Irish Lion, England and Sale Sharks winger Mark Cueto, leading business development as sales director.
A corporate finance team at Deloitte comprising partner Darren Boocock and directors Nick Carr and Dan Marchington provided financial advice to 4th Utility, and introduced the business to DIF Capital Partners.
Darren Boocock said: “Tony and the team at the 4th Utility are in a position to disrupt the market and provide a differentiated offering at a time when reliance on broadband capabilities is at an all time high.
“In DIF Capital Partners we have found a strategic partner to help the business take the next step in its growth journey, and we are confident that, with its support, 4th Utility will go from strength to strength in the coming months.”
