Mubadala and Apollo Funds to Invest $500 Million in Brightspeed

Brightspeed, a provider of broadband and telecommunications services, and Mubadala Investment Company ("Mubadala"), the sovereign investor of Abu Dhabi, announced this week that Mubadala would invest $500 million in Brightspeed. With this investment, Mubadala will join investment funds managed by Apollo Global Management, Inc. affiliates as a minority shareholder. Brightspeed is the fifth-largest incumbent local exchange carrier (ILEC) in the United States, with the capacity to serve more than 6.5 million homes and businesses in primarily rural and suburban communities across the Midwest, Southeast, and parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Brightspeed officially initiated operations in October 2022 and started the construction of its state-of-the-art fiber optics network, which began serving its first fiber customers in March 2023. Over the next five years, Brightspeed's planned fiber optics transformation is anticipated to reach up to 3 million homes and businesses, including many locations where fiber and advanced technology have not been historically deployed.

As cloud services, video streaming, IoT applications, and 5G technologies drive up data volumes and the demand for quicker, more reliable connectivity, companies like Brightspeed play a crucial role in providing essential digital infrastructure solutions. Brightspeed was founded to bridge the digital divide. This investment will help accelerate Brightspeed's expansion plans to deliver high-speed, reliable internet connectivity to communities where access to fiber internet was previously limited.