British startup Netomnia plans to deploy a fiber-optic network for 1 million homes
The Netomnia startup received a $385 million investment, with DigitalBridge leading the funding round. Part of the funds also came from Soho Square, as well as Advencap, which had previously acted as investors in the project. Thus, the total investment in Netomnia amounted to 418 million pounds, including 73 million pounds of debt. The management is keeping the total valuation of the business a secret.
The UK-based startup is engaged in the production and installation of fiber optics. According to the founder Jeremy Chelo, the funds will be used to connect households to the fiber-optic network. The plan is to provide modern equipment to about 1 million British homes within two years.
Jeremy Chelo was formerly an executive at Community Fiber, a startup. Two years ago the firm was bought by an investment company, and the proceeds from the sale went to launch Netomnia and a new Internet service provider.
The startup has pretty ambitious plans. In addition to providing fiber optics to a large number of homes in different regions of the kingdom, Netomnia management wants to make the company the third-largest operator in the country. Implementing such a strategy will be extremely difficult, as the startup will have to compete with the network of BT Group Plc, which now dominates and was previously a monopolist. The latter plans to make 25 million connections within 5 years. The second place in the British market is occupied by Virgin Media O2, which is actively increasing connections.
This spring, Netomnia began a partnership with STL, a digital network integration company. It occupies a leading position in the global market. It is reported that STL will test its FTTx solution on Netomnia networks.
STL has been developing in the fiber optic communications sector for 25 years. Its programmable networking technology is used in both corporate and personal applications. The company also provides services to cellular operators.
The U.K. is one of the leading countries in the transition to innovative broadband technology with full-fiber networks. Despite the fact that Netomnia is a fairly new player on the market, the startup has already earned the trust of customers and partners.
The partners plan to conduct comprehensive testing, after which a modern architecture for FTTx can be implemented in the country. Fiber-optic networks from Netomnia have all the necessary characteristics to conduct a full-fledged study. The partners hope that the result of their cooperation will allow them to offer advanced business models for building large-scale networks in the future. In addition, STL promises that infrastructure deployment will now be much easier and faster.
