Newport Beach-based Mobilitie LLC has raised $100 million to fund high-speed antenna systems and small cellular base stations to serve high-traffic public venues such as sports stadiums.
Some of the money also will go toward Wi-Fi networks and new wireless tower sites across the U.S.
Los Angeles-based private equity firm Shamrock Capital Advisors led the investment and will take a “sizable” stake in the company.
Mobilitie is building out what’s called neutral-host distributed antenna systems. The fiber-based systems, which have hundreds of little antennae, allow wireless carriers to boost traffic capacity and improve data-transfer rates during sports games, concerts and other highly attended events.
“This is very much needed and in high demand with carriers upgrading all their networks with 4G,” said President Christos Karmis.
The company is targeting sports stadiums, shopping malls, music venues and other heavily trafficked areas.
It recently outfitted Nationwide Arena, home to the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets. The company also outfitted Churchhill Downs in Louisville, which hosts the Kentucky Derby, horse racing’s largest annual event that drew more than 165,000 spectators last year.
Mobilitie’s technology played key roles at the Republican and Democratic National conventions in 2012.
The company provided high-speed antenna systems at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla., for the GOP event, and at Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, N.C., where the Democrats gathered.
Mobilitie was established in 2005 by Deloitte & Touche LLP veteran Gary Jabara, who invested his own money.
Los Angeles-based private equity firm Oaktree Capital Management LP also has a stake in the company.
Mobilitie spends anywhere from $500,000 to $7 million to set up cell stations, depending on the size and existing infrastructure of the site. Carriers then lease the systems.
Demand is strong, according to the company.
“We have a huge pipeline,” Karmis said.
Mobilitie is growing in an industry that’s dominated by a handful of publicly traded tower operators, including Houston-based Crown Castle International Corp., American Tower Corp. in Boston, and Boca Raton, Fla.-based SBA Communications Corp. Mobilitie last year sold a chunk of its assets—about 2,300 cell phone towers—to SBA Communications for an estimated $1.1 billion.
The remaining operations helped Mobilitie notch about $175 million in revenue in the 12 months through June 2012. The total included some revenue from the operations that were sold off, and came to a 138.2% increase compared with two years earlier. That landed the company at No. 50 on the Business Journal’s list of fastest-growing private companies last year.
Proceeds from the sale to SBA Communications, meanwhile, helped put Jabara on the Business Journal’s annual list of OC’s wealthiest residents.
