Rural UK Broadband Altnet Gigaclear Secures £80m Funding from Banks

Abingdon-based broadband ISP Gigaclear, which has built a full fibre (FTTP) network across 612,000 premises in rural parts of England and is home to c.160,000 customers, has today announced that they’ve secured “at least” £80m in new funding from its consortium of existing banks. The provider now claims to be “fully funded to deliver its plans“.

The provider, which is this month celebrating its 15th birthday after taking on the huge challenge of trying to expand FTTP across rural areas via a commercial build, currently still holds an aspiration to extend their network reach to 1 million UK premises. But like so many other operators they’ve recently also had to scale-back their build and cut jobs, due to the pressures from high interest rates, rising build costs and a highly competitive environment (here and here).

Suffice to say that funding has recently become somewhat of a hot topic for Gigaclear, which was in the news last month over reports that they had begun hunting for a buyer (here). But in the meantime it appears as if the provider’s existing banks have agreed to pump “at least” £80m of new funding into the company, although exact details of the deal were not included in the announcement.

Gigaclear’s main focus today is now on delivering their publicly subsidised Project Gigabit contracts (i.e. “ultra rural areas“) for the government, while also trying to boost customer take-up through a stronger focus on commercialisation of the network they’ve already built. But at the same time they’ve still got a £1bn debt pile to manage.

Nathan Rundle, CEO of Gigaclear, said:

“For 15 years, Gigaclear has been committed to one clear mission: ensuring rural communities are no longer left behind. From our earliest builds to our rapidly expanding customer base, every milestone has been driven by that goal. As we look ahead, this new funding gives us a robust platform to continue expanding our network and deliver unparalleled connectivity to even more rural homes and businesses as well as further supporting the evolution of the business to achieve becoming cash flow positive.

There’s still more work to do to close the digital divide but combined with our achievement of EBITDA positivity earlier this year and strong customer growth, this funding reflects a business that is financially secure, operationally robust and focused on sustainable long-term delivery.”

In 2025, the company says they expanded their network via Project Gigabit, connecting more than 30,000 new premises – putting them on track to achieve a 28% penetration rate. Looking ahead, Gigaclear now says they will continue expanding their “customer base, investing in operational innovation and enhancing the customer experience through technologies such as AI-powered installation tools“.