A CASH injection of £25m has been secured to promote the growth of a Trafford broadband outfit.

Bosses at 4th Utility in Hale have welcomed the funding from DIF Capital Partners as they look to make further in-roads into the ultra-fast fibre broadband market.

The Cambridge Road venture has its own last-mile fibre optic network, which brings broadband speeds of up to one gigabyte per second for customers and they will use this to generate an increased market share.

The firm says that new customers can get online with them within 60 seconds of signing up to their service - compared to a usual five working days through other options.

Tony Hughes, chief executive at 4th Utility, said: “The partnership with DIF Capital Partners is a significant milestone for our business and gives us a fantastic platform to deliver ultrafast internet access to many more properties across the UK.

“The team at DIF share our desire to invest in high-quality fibre infrastructure and our ambition is to use this funding to become one of the leading broadband providers in the UK, ensuring thousands of new customers can benefit from full fibre connectivity.”

Jimmy Acton, their chief technology officer, added: “We are passionate about the customer journey and in the same way Uber changed booking a taxi, we’ve replicated that for residential fibre broadband.

“When you move into a new home you would expect that all of the utilities work straight away.

"We very much see broadband as the essential fourth utility, so we’ve created a solution that means super-fast full fibre broadband can be ready to go from day one.

"Our tech stack is built, it’s already live in hundreds of homes and now we’re ready to expand with this new funding in place.”

Government officials have already pledged a major rollout for broadband across the nation, with Chancellor Rishi Sunak confirming Whitehall would pump £5bn into its plans to create a wider network across the UK.

Staff at the Trafford company, as well as domestic installations, also partner with residential and commercial landlords, property developers and house builders to design, install and upgrade their properties within new and existing homes.

Willem Jansonius, Head of DIF Capital Partners, said: “We are pleased to bring our experience in digital infrastructure to support 4th Utility and their management team in delivering FTTP infrastructure investment to underserved properties in the UK”.

Property developers including Crest Nicholson, David Wilson Homes and Fortis Group are among those to have already agreed broadband partnerships with 4th Utility, which has former British Lion, England and Sale Sharks winger Mark Cueto as sales director.