London-based fiber infrastructure provider CityFibre said it will accelerate its plans to roll out Gigabit Cities throughout the UK after an oversubscribed £30m secondary fundraising was approved by its board.

CityFibre enables Gigabit Cities via its shared fiber infrastructure model, delivering “future-proof”, gigabit speed networks for Internet service providers in the public, private and consumer sectors.

The latest funding round adds to the £16.5m CityFibre raised at its initial public offering earlier this year and brings a number of major financial institutions to its register.

CityFibre said the cash injection will support the deployment of networks in more than 20 new Gigabit Cities.

The expansion will ensure more than one million homes, business and public sector sites throughout the UK are provided with cutting edge gigabit connectivity by 2016.

CityFibre said it has already seen substantial interest from local authorities nation wide and as part of its process to determine suitable candidates for future projects.

The company said it will be opening an application process for the next ten cities to be prioritized for roll-out.

In April, CityFibre partnered up with Sky and TalkTalk to launch ultra-fast broadband in the city of York and two further cities – claiming it to be the first time two major service providers have teamed up with an alternative infrastructure provider.

CityFibre’s CEO Greg Mesch said that as a nation, the UK is at a critical moment in its economic evolution and is faced with a choice between the technology of the past and fiber promise of the future.

“The internet-enabled economy is responsible for a higher level of GDP contribution in the UK than in any G-20 country,” Mesch said.

“But broadband infrastructure lags behind that of many others that have been faster to invest in pure fiber infrastructure.”