Netomnia Limited, a UK fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) alternative network operator, and its partner, YouFibre Limited, an internet service provider (ISP), today announced that they have secured £295m ($385m USD) of new equity, led by DigitalBridge Group (NYSE: DBRG), through its investment management unit, alongside follow-on commitments from existing shareholders Soho Square Capital and Advencap Limited.
Today’s announcement closely follows Netomnia’s £123m ($165m USD) capital raise, in November 2021, which included a combination of debt and equity. Specifically, ~5 months ago, Netomnia received funding from ESO Capital Partners (£20m), Advencap Limited (£25m), Avenue Capital Group (£73m in debt), and its founders (£5m).
Finally, the DigitalBridge-led transaction, which will bring Netomnia’s total funding to £418m ($550m USD), is expected to close in Q2 2022.
Netomnia and YouFibre – DigitalBridge Backs Fiber Deployment
Netomnia was founded in 2019 and is headquartered in the town of Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, England. The company serves UK homes and businesses with high-speed broadband, delivering gigabit speeds over its fiber broadband network.
Since commencing its fiber roll-out in 2020, Netomnia has passed more than 130k premises with fiber. Further, Netomnia targets 1 million premises passed over the next two years, implying a completion timeline at the end of 2023 or early 2024. To this end, the company’s fiber roll-out has 500k premises in progress.
Deployments
Presently, Netomnia’s coverage extends to the following 30 towns and cities across England, Scotland, and Wales in the UK:
- South West: Cheltenham, Frome, Stroud, Trowbridge
- South East: Ashford, Canterbury, Gravesend, Guildford, Maidstone
- East Anglia: King’s Lynn, Wisbech
- East Midlands: Boston, Spalding
- Yorkshire Humberside: Pontefract, Wakefield
- North West: Bamber Bridge, Barrow, Carlisle, Horwich, Lancaster
- North East: Darlington, Durham, Houghton, Peterlee, Spennymoor, and Stockton
- Scotland: East Kilbride, Hamilton
- Wales: Barry, Bridgend
Overall, Netomnia is currently planning to deploy fiber in a total of 100 areas across the UK. This includes bringing high-speed broadband to underserved UK towns and cities.
Wholesale Access
Netomnia makes wholesale connectivity available to internet service providers (ISPs), including its partner YouFibre. Therefore, ISPs such as YouFibre can deliver broadband services directly to end users.
YouFibre offers customers fiber broadband packages at speeds of 50 megabits per second (Mbps), 150 Mbps, 500 Mbps, and 1 gigabit per second (Gbps).
Management
Netomnia is led by Jeremy Chelot as founder and CEO. Additionally, Callum Dick is Non Executive Chairman of Netomnia. Both Chelot and Dick co-founded Community Fibre, a UK FTTP alternative network operator serving London, which is now backed by Warburg Pincus, DTCP, and Amber Infrastructure.
Transaction Advisors
DigitalBridge’s legal advisor was Vinson & Elkins.
Netomnia and YouFibre’s financial advisor was Greenhill. Additionally, Netomnia, YouFibre, and their existing shareholder’s legal advisor was Stephenson Harwood.
