Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala has invested $500m in US broadband firm Brightspeed.With the investment, Mubadala will become a minority shareholder in Brightspeed, joining investment funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management.
Brightspeed, headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, is currently the fifth-largest incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) in the US.The company has the capability to serve more than 6.5m homes and businesses in rural and suburban communities across the US Midwest, Southeast, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.
Brightspeed began operations officially in October 2022 and started the build-out of its state-of-the-art fibre optics network.The company began serving its first fibre customers in March 2023, and its planned fibre optics transformation is expected to reach up to 3 million homes and businesses over the next five years.
This includes locations where fibre and advanced technology have not historically been deployed.With the rise of cloud services, video streaming, IoT applications, and 5G technologies, the demand for faster, reliable connectivity is rapidly increasing.
Companies like Brightspeed play a critical role in providing essential digital infrastructure solutions.Brightspeed’s ambition is to help bridge the digital divide by providing high-speed, dependable internet connectivity to communities where access to fibre internet and advanced technology has historically been limited.
This investment from Mubadala will accelerate the company’s growth plans towards achieving this goal.
Khaled Abdulla Al Qubaisi, CEO of Real Estate and Infrastructure Investments at Mubadala, said: “Digital infrastructure is driving growth and development across all sectors of society, enabling people and economies to reach their full potential.
“As a responsible global investor, Mubadala sees huge opportunity in supporting Brightspeed’s growth strategy in transitioning large swathes of the US to fibre connectivity and promoting digital equity and inclusion.