Fibre optic UK broadband ISP Trooli (CallFlow), which last year secured €30m from European investors (here) and extended their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network to reach 10,000 homes and businesses (mostly in Kent and Hampshire), has today gained a further £5m of funding via a senior facility agreement with NatWest Bank.
So far most of their initial build has occurred around Kings Hill, Kate Reed Wood, Paddock Wood and Hawking in Kent, as well as Ropley and Bramdean in Hampshire. Later this was followed by another expansion into West Malling, Leybourne, Ryarsh and Coxheath across Kent.
However the operator aims to grow their network to 150,000 premises passed by around mid-2022 and, if all goes to plan, then their long-term ambition is to reach 500,000 by the end of 2025. The new funding is predominantly expected to assist their roll-out across Kent in England.
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Ashley Atkins, CFO for Trooli, said:
“We’re extremely passionate about rolling out our Full Fibre network to as many communities in Kent as possible and providing the broadband speeds they deserve.
Demonstrating the ability to deliver against our business plan was a critical factor in gaining the confidence of the NatWest Structured Finance team. It is testament to the hard work of the whole Trooli team that we have secured this investment at such an early stage in the company’s growth plan.
I would also like to thank Acuity Partners for their support through this process.”
Ian Mason, Relationship Director for NatWest, said:
“At NatWest, we are passionate about helping British businesses to prosper, and in turn to provide our regional communities with greater connectivity.
With Trooli, we have not only found a business that is in a great position to succeed but one that will provide a real benefit to residents and business owners in Kent.
We look forward to working with Trooli to help them deliver their business plan, whilst connecting thousands of new customers across Kent to Full Fibre broadband.”
At present Trooli’s packages tend to cost from £50 inc. VAT per month for an unlimited 300Mbps service and this rises to £80 for 900Mbps+ (one-off installation charges range from £80 for self-install to £120 for a Trooli install). However they’ll need to raise significantly more investment to achieve that ambition of 500,000 premises, but they’re off to a good start.
Gosh I am stuck in between Sheffield and Doncaster – Virgin is streets away and BT goes up to a whopping 24mbps. Why can’t they jut in fill the areas that need it? I’d kill for anywhere near 100 let alone 300/900!
Same here mate… I live in a village in West Yorkshire and I’m stuck with 27Mbps internet from BT FTTC, I would love an upgrade to at least 100!
Oh gosh poor you.
My mum is still stuck on 6Mbps (and just 500K upload). Yet Trooli have showed little interest in rolling out to her address in Kent Even though the area has 115 properties with speeds less then 24Mbps due to distance from the FTTC cabinets.
I really wish that FTTH companies would be targeting addresses that have sub-24Mbps instead of going for areas that already have 24Mbps+ available or even cable already available. Kent needs a company like B4RN!
Are we going to end up with being able to decide from the main and alternative providers? For example, if Trooli deploy in a certain area, will Openreach and say Liberty be interested in doing the same, or will they be discouraged as a FTTP provider is present already?
In this case where the altnet is built using Openreach PIA I think it is unlikely that OR will over build. It’d make more sense to just purchase Trooli in a few years time.
VM is unlikely to over build as they don’t even show interest in larger market towns.
VM also totally ignore Milton Keynes which is an urban area of 250k+ population and a growth pattern taking it towards 500k.
A massive market which is only being developed in large numbers by BT and CityFibre. Strange business logic from VM.