Financing secured for company offering fast rural broadband

08 July 2010

Many rural households have poor broadband access and are therefore unable to use websites, such as YouTube and iplayer, which most urban dwellers take for granted. Similarly, without fast, reliable broadband, many rural businesses are put at a significant commercial disadvantage. 

These problems are now being solved. A client of Bridge Mergers & Acquisitions, Open Air Networks, had developed the technology, based on WiMax (the next generation to WiFi) and mobile wireless access, which could provide rural users with broadband speeds comparable to the best achieved in urban areas.  An agreement for first round financing was made on 5 July with private equity sources enabling rollout of the service, initially in the South–West.  Bridge introduced and facilitated this transaction.

The Chief Executive of Open Air Networks, John Ridley, said “Bridge’s contribution was invaluable, enabling us to tap into sources of private equity finance that we would not be able to access on our own”.