ALBANY, NY / BOSTON, MA / NEW YORK NY — Riverside Partners announced today that it has completed the previously announced sale of its portfolio company, FirstLight Fiber (“FirstLight”), a leading fiber-optic bandwidth infrastructure services provider operating in New York and Northern New England, to Oak Hill Capital Partners (“Oak Hill”). Riverside Partners also announced that it will continue as a minority investor in FirstLight.
“FirstLight has been an exciting investment for Riverside Partners” said Steven F. Kaplan, General Partner at Riverside Partners and Chairman of FirstLight’s Board of Directors. “When we acquired FirstLight, it was an Albany, New York focused fiber provider. Over the last six years we have transformed FirstLight into a leading regional bandwidth infrastructure provider with operations spanning New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Maine. Riverside Partners helped drive FirstLight’s growth through capital expenditures to expand the company’s fiber network and the strategic acquisitions of segTEL in New Hampshire, TelJet in Vermont and G4 in New Hampshire. During Riverside’s investment period, FirstLight expanded its fiber network from 199 route miles to over 2,500 route miles and today operates a network of nearly 275,000 fiber miles with over 2,000 on-net locations and 14,000 near-net buildings. We look forward to working with Oak Hill, as well as continuing to work with Kurt Van Wagenen, who will remain FirstLight’s CEO, and the rest of the management team to drive the Company’s next stage of growth.” Mr. Kaplan will continue as a FirstLight board member.
Kurt Van Wagenen, CEO of FirstLight, added, “Riverside Partners has been an incredibly valuable partner to FirstLight. I look forward to Riverside Partners remaining involved with the Company as we begin the next phase of our growth with our new partner Oak Hill. In particular, I am very excited about Oak Hill’s pending acquisitions of Oxford Networks and Sovernet, both which, upon closing, will be combined with FirstLight.”
About Riverside Partners
Founded in 1989, Riverside Partners is a middle market private equity firm currently investing Riverside Fund V, L.P. The fund focuses on growth-oriented companies primarily in the healthcare and technology industries. Riverside Partners is particularly experienced at partnering with founders, owners and management teams and it brings substantial domain expertise and operating experience to its portfolio companies. Today, Riverside Partners manages about $850 million of equity capital and seeks to make investments in companies with revenues between $20 and $200 million and with $5 to $25 million of EBITDA. For more information, please visit www.riversidepartners.com.
About FirstLight Fiber
FirstLight Fiber, headquartered in Albany, New York, provides fiber-optic data, Internet, data center and voice services to enterprise and carrier customers in New York and Northern New England with connectivity to Canada connecting over 2,000 locations in service with an additional 14,000 locations serviceable by our nearly 275,000 fiber-mile network. FirstLight offers a robust suite of advanced telecommunications products featuring a comprehensive portfolio of high bandwidth connectivity solutions including Ethernet, wavelengths and dark fiber as well as dedicated Internet access solutions, data center services, and voice services such as SIP trunks, virtual PBX, and traditional TDM solutions. FirstLight’s clientele includes national cellular providers and wireline carriers and many leading enterprises, spanning high tech manufacturing and research, hospitals and healthcare, banking and financial, secondary education, colleges and universities, and local and state governments. To learn more about FirstLight, visit www.firstlight.net, or follow the company on Twitter and LinkedIn.
Riverside Partners Contact:
Jon Lemelman
General Partner
617-351-2810
jlemelman@riversidepartners.com