Jun 13, 2022

GILLETTE – A local provider of fast internet service has gotten an infusion of money from a private equity firm that invests in such companies, it announced this past week.

Gillette's Visionary Broadband characterized this as "a strategic investment from funds affiliated with GTCR," which itself is a private equity firm based in Chicago. Financial and other details were not disclosed.

The financing will help Visionary keep up its spending to build fiber networks in Wyoming, Colorado and Montana. It will also "prepare Visionary for match requirements in upcoming state-led grant programs." Some states award money to telecommunications companies for broadband service in areas that are considered underserved or even not reached at all by internet providers.

Now, Visionary Broadband can speed up its network expansion for fiber-to-the-premise broadband to rural and underserved areas, the internet services provider said of what is also called FTTP. The ISP is "bringing multi-gigabit" per second transmission speeds via "fiber-based internet access to their service areas," said Stephen Jeschke, managing director at GTCR, in the announcement. 

"This allows us to do even more for both existing and future Visionary customers," said Brian Worthen, CEO of Visionary Broadband, in Monday's news release. "GTCR shares our rural broadband focus."

In Wyoming, Visionary's FTTP projects include Casper, Cheyenne, Gillette, Lander, Laramie and Lusk. It has finished such projects in Dayton, LaGrange, Ranchester and Yoder.

View the entire article at Wyoming Business Report.