Seaborn Networks finishes second round of funding

While it did not reveal the amount of funding it received, Seaborn said the funding will enable it to expand its sales and marketing efforts, add new employees and apply for landing licenses in the U.S. and Brazil for the Seabras-1 cable, in addition to taking on other project development steps.

Besides the new funding, the service provider appointed Jefferies & Company as its financial advisor for project financing for its Seabras-1 cable system.

Set to be completed in 2014, Seaborn said that Seabras-1 is a 32 Tbps submarine cable that will provide what it says the first direct route between Sao Paulo and the United States.

Already, Seabras-1 has attracted both Tata Communications and Sidera Networks to rent capacity on the system. The system could also be an attractive route for other international and U.S.-based traditional service providers, broadcasters and content providers that are going to be delivering content during the upcoming 2014 FIFA World Cup.

While the success of the new cable is far from certain, a recent TeleGeography report revealed that builds like Seabras-1 could potentially drive down service prices in Latin America, a market traditionally known for high priced bandwidth connections due to a lack of competition.