HighNet continues to attract new customers
Funding from Shawbrook Bank has helped an ambitious Scottish technology company to be fully ‘business as usual’ during the Coronavirus pandemic.
HighNet, a key delivery partner in bringing Gigabit broadband to Scottish cities, invested in crucial technology and hardware to enable it to operate seamlessly in lockdown.
The Inverness-based firm, which also has an office in Glasgow, replicated their office IT set-up (with multiple monitors on every workstation) for their staff at home, enabling them to work successfully during Covid-19 restrictions.
Shawbrook’s earlier funding had allowed the firm – which offers voice, data and mobile connectivity for businesses – to purchase a large range of IP addresses, essential for providing services to its growing customer base.
HighNet approached Shawbrook for funding due to the Bank’s growing reputation as a specialist lender in the technology sector.
Scott MacRae, finance director at HighNet, said: “We offer our clients state of the art voice, data and mobile connectivity through our dedicated high-speed network, and we work with many businesses and organisations across all of Scotland’s major cities.
“Operating a business-grade telecoms network requires us continually to re-invest in hardware, software and other resources to deliver a best in class service. With thousands of customer sites connected to our high-speed broadband network and increasing demand from business customers, the purchase of additional IP addresses was essential for our growth.
“The Covid-19 outbreak posed another challenge for the safety and well-being of our staff, who all had to move to home-working. We expected that a combination of home-working and office-working would continue for some time and could become our ‘new normal’. This meant that a suite of brand-new workstations and monitors had to be purchased to enable that transition to go as smoothly as possible and for the business to continue to operate smoothly under lockdown and beyond.”
Mr. MacRae added: “We approached Shawbrook as we knew of their specialist capability, knowledge and understanding of businesses such as ours as well as their growing reputation as a funder in the UK technology space.
“Shawbrook understood our business and our market from the offset, supporting us on three separate occasions by funding new servers, workstations and IP addresses. Not many lenders would be willing to support the purchase of IP addresses due to their status as an intangible asset but Shawbrook’s understanding of the technology space and how crucial IPs are to our business meant there was no hesitation. We are delighted to be working with them.”
HighNet powers some of Scotland’s fastest-growing and innovative businesses through its own high-speed network. The company provides full-fibre gigabit connectivity in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and soon will be doing so in Inverness. The firm also provides state-of-the-art cloud telephony services as well as traditional fixed lines and mobile connectivity.
Neil Arculus, from Shawbrook’s Technology Finance team, said: “We are delighted to be able to support HighNet with a funding facility to ensure that the business remained resilient to the challenges of operating and growing under Covid-19.
“HighNet is an exciting business which is a key provider of critical services to some of the most ambitious telecommunications projects across Scotland. With IP addresses classed as intangible assets, not many lenders would be willing to support their purchase through a tailored finance facility. However, with our specialist approach to the tech sector and a clear understanding of what the management team at HighNet were trying to achieve during this very challenging time, we were more than happy to support them.”
