Alchemy invest in broadband service provider

Investee Company – Centric Telecom (UK)

Investee Company Business Type – Installs broadband services in office buildings

Type of Financing – Expansion

Equity Providers – Alchemy Partners

Equity Leader (Individual) – Robert Barnes & Rachel Murphy

Debt Providers – N/K

Debt Type – N/K

Debt Leader (Individual) – N/K

Equity Amount – £5 million

Total Deal Value – N/K

Advisors – KPMG (Sharukh Dumasia and Oliver Tant) and Macfarlanes (Tom Fitzpatrick and James Baker) advised Alchemy Partners.

Comments – Centric Telecom, London-based broadband service provider, announced the close of a funding round to which Alchemy Partners committed £5 million. Alchemy was joined in this financing by strategic investor eLink Communications, a leading US-based broadband provider to the SME market.

Centric offers services including high-speed Internet from 1Mbps to 10Mbps, advanced firewall security and Virtual Private Networks (VPN). The company intends to use the funding to accelerate the roll out of high-speed Internet and IT services to expanding companies within the UK.

Centric’s main competitor is BT, however unlike BT, Centric supplies broadband to entire buildings. The company has several major property partners including CompCo Holdings Plc, Langham Estate, Portfolio Holdings, Security Capital European Reality, Taylor Woodrow, Threadneedle Property Investments and Tishman Speyer.

Robert Barnes, partner at Alchemy, commented: “Alchemy looked at the market and chose to invest in Centric Telecom because of its combination of experience and major property partners. Broadband Internet access is becoming an essential standard for every business. We like Centric’s leadership position and its ability to roll out aggressively priced products to the SME market.”