A fund managed by Blue Owl Capital has made a majority investment in Gigabit Fiber, LLC, Gigagbit Fiber announced this week.
The amount of the investment wasn’t disclosed, though the Gigabit Fiber press release said the Blue Owl Capital funds would help the company “address the burgeoning demand for fiber connectivity across hyperscale data centers and other use cases driven by AI and cloud.”
Gigabit Fiber owns and operates approximately 500 route miles of conduit with high-count fiber networks connecting more than 50 data centers across its network, with a presence in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Austin, El Paso, San Antonio, and South Texas.
According to the announcement, the Blue Owl investment will help Gigabit Fiber increase and deepen its footprint across Texas and New Mexico.
“We are excited to welcome Blue Owl into our 25-year partnership and look forward to leveraging their expertise and capital to accelerate our growth and expand our network reach,” Gigabit Fiber chairman and CEO Tom Spackman said in a prepared statement.
“We are deploying next-generation, high-count conduit systems in ring configurations across our metros — networks that serve as the connective tissue enabling our customers to manufacture artificial intelligence at scale.”
The Gigabit Fiber investment marked the second major investment in fiber by Blue Owl this summer.
In July, Blue Owl Capital’s Digital Infrastructure fund acquired Intermetro Fiber, a Florida infrastructure provider that does business as South Reach Networks (SRN), for an undisclosed amount.
SRN provides dark and lit fiber infrastructure in a 370-mile network from Jacksonville to Miami. It connects with five colocation edge facilities that are also owned by SRN along the route. Overall, the network is on-net or near 40 data centers, colocation facilities, and cable landing stations.
