RTP leads $17m round for India internet provider
RTP Global has led a USD 17m round for India’s Wiom, a home internet provider for middle and lower-middle-income customers.
Alteria Capital, Blume Ventures, Global Brain, Omidyar Network, Stride Ventures, YourNest Capital, and 9Unicorns, a fund set up by local incubator Venture Catalysts, also participated. 3one4 Capital, a regular co-investor of 9Unicorns and YourNest, has publicised the round, calling itself a committed partner since Wiom’s seed stage.
9 Unicorns and YourNest led a USD 4m seed investment last year. That round also featured Omidyar Network and Auxano, a local angel investor associated with boutique wealth management firm Bellwether Associates.
Wiom styles itself as India’s leading provider of affordable, unlimited internet access for middle and lower-middle-income households. It uses a platform-led distribution model leveraging the government’s PM-WANI framework, a broadband service based on public Wi-Fi hotspots.
The offering, touted as a social inclusion play, is available for as little as INR 10 (USD 0.12) a day without any upfront costs. 3one4 framed the opportunity set by noting home Wi-Fi penetration in India is only 10% versus a global average of 80%.
Wiom has set a target of having 150m users in the next five years without specifying its current user base. For context, India currently has about 34m wired broadband subscribers in total versus 817m wireless broadband subscribers.
“Air, water, food, and the internet are the new essentials of modern life. Every individual in our country must be able to afford 24/7 unlimited internet,” Satyam Darmora, founder of Wiom, said in a statement. “Wiom paves the way for a future where connectivity knows no boundaries.”
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