Kirkland-based fiber internet company Ziply Fiber has raised $450 million, the company announced Thursday. The funding round follows a $350 million raise last October.
With the funding, CEO Harold Zeitz said Ziply Fiber plans to continue putting fiber internet in its existing network. In addition, the company plans to expand services to areas outside of its current network.
"We also have found demand from towns that are nearby our network that we weren't in before," Zeitz said. "We call that edge out. It's near our network, so it's economical for us to get to. This additional money is for us to really accelerate that process."
Zeitz said Ziply Fiber currently has 1,400 total employees. Although a high number of those employees are based in the Puget Sound region, the company has employees spread out over its service area of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana. Ziply Fiber is not providing an updated company value with the raise.
Zeitz said the company's business doesn't need many more employees to continue growing, so the headcount will likely not change much over the next year. He added that the company has office space in Kirkland and Everett, and Ziply Fiber doesn't plan to change its physical footprint for the time being.
Ziply Fiber formed in 2020 after the investment firms Searchlight Capital Partners and Kirkland-based WaveDivision Capital bought the Northwest operations from Frontier Communications for $1.35 billion in a deal first announced in 2019. The company offers fiber internet, phone service and TV streaming.
In addition to residential customers, Ziply Fiber has commercial and government clients, Zeitz said, and the company often focuses on more suburban and rural areas as opposed to dense cities like Seattle. According to Ziply Fiber, the company has already upgraded its copper network to fiber in more than 80 markets since its founding.
WaveDivision Capital, Searchlight, Public Sector Pension Investment Board, British Columbia Investment Management Corp. and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board all participated in the round.
As for why the company is raising such a massive round less than a year after raising $350 million, Zeitz said uncertainty in the markets and the desire to grow Ziply Fiber's reach made the move appealing.
"This is an appropriate time for us to expand our mission," Zeitz said.
