Credit: Wave
Credit: Wave Broadband

Wave Broadband has raised $125 million to continue building out its fiber internet network for businesses and residents on the West Coast.

Wave CEO Steve Weed
Wave CEO Steve Weed

Wave did not take on an equity investment like many tech companies use for funding, but instead a loan. It is an add-on to a $130 million corporate bond from last year. This is the third time in Wave’s 13-year-history that it has raised outside money, having recapitalized for $1.1 billion in 2012.

Wave also announced that it acquired two fiber-optic broadband companies: Newport, Ore.-based CoastCom and Vancouver, Wash.-based SawNet. With these acquisitions, Wave has now bought 20 companies since it was founded in 2002.

The financing and acquisitions point to the same trend: Wave is using every avenue possible to build out its fiber network as more people want it.

“At this point, demand for our product is greater than our ability to build it,” Wave CEO Steve Weed told GeekWire.

Wave’s fiber network stretches up and down the West Coast, from the San Francisco Bay Area to Canada. The network spans 5,500 fiber miles, primarily in the western portions of Washington, Oregon and California. Weed said the company is adding approximately 100 miles of Fiber per month to beef up and extend its network.

Wave President Harold Zeitz
Wave President Harold Zeitz

“With this new funding we can accelerate our network buildout, and we have over 1,000 projects across those three states,” said Harold Zeitz, Wave president. That includes more than 450 projects in Washington.

Wave recently expanded its Wave G gigabit residential internet service to Portland and San Francisco. The service brings “industrial strength internet” to apartment and condo buildings.

Wave has more than 1,300 employees, approximately 430 of whom work out of the company’s headquarters in Kirkland, Wash. Earlier this year, Wave announced plans to double the size of its Kirkland headquarters.

[Editor’s note: Wave Broadband is a GeekWire sponsor]

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