Bandwidth and Cloud Services Group Holdings (BCS)

In brief

Bandwidth and Cloud Services Group (BCS) is a wholesale telecom infrastructure provider, operating under licenses in several African countries. The Group offers two main services that generate a combination of recurring and one-off project revenues: (i) acting as a wholesale telecom service provider by selling bandwidth capacity to mobile network operators and internet service providers every month, and (ii) acting as an EPC contractor and constructing terrestrial fibre infrastructure for its clients. Since its inception, BCS has served more than 40 clients, including Airtel, Safaricom and Vodacom Groups, with its bandwidth capacity resale and constructed over 7,500 km of fibre optic cable infrastructure for third-party clients in Kenya, Uganda, and DRC. DRC currently needs access to an affordable and good quality internet connection, with large areas still relying on satellite connections, and data transfer prices are amongst the highest in the world. By building its infrastructure, BCS can offer full connectivity throughout the region with lower prices and secure a first-mover advantage against competition. Finnfund is financing the Group’s DRC expansion.

Main development impact

Investment details

Please note, that in principle, this information is given at the time of signature according to Finnfund's disclosure policy. However, in the case of investment funds, the share of Finnfund’s financing (%) is disclosed after the fund’s final closing, and information on the portfolio companies financed by the fund is updated at least once a year.