Everflow’s £44m raise tests whether SMEs want broadband with their water

Everflow, a County Durham-based utilities provider for businesses, has secured £44m, BGF announced on 13 July: £22m from investor BGF and a £22m bespoke funding package from digital bank OakNorth. Founded in 2015 as an intermediary between water wholesalers and commercial customers, it now serves more than 120,000 premises and, according to BGF, has grown 30% a year over the past three years.

The pitch is consolidation. BGF’s announcement says Everflow’s offering, which includes waste management and connectivity services, “allows SMEs to manage multiple business utilities through a single provider relationship”. The money will fund expansion across the UK, diversification into new sectors through customer growth and M&A, a bigger team than its current 250 staff, and AI in its internal processes and its Evie platform. The deal gives private equity investor Perwyn an exit, and Stuart Warriner, formerly lead M&A partner at PwC in Yorkshire, joins as non-executive chair.

For the owner of a small business who spends more time on supplier admin than they would like, one relationship for water, waste and broadband has obvious appeal. Craig Dallison, chief executive of Everflow, said the company set out in 2015 “to make utilities simple for SMEs”.

But connectivity is not water. Water from the tap is the same whoever sends the bill. A phone line and a broadband connection are not: the network, the equipment, the migration path and the fault support all differ by provider. Small firms should welcome more competition for their connectivity spend, and still buy it as a decision in its own right.

The switch-off raises the stakes

The timing makes that distinction sharper. Openreach said in February that its parent, BT Group, will retire the public switched telephone network (PSTN) by 31 January 2027. At that point roughly 2.8 million lines still needed to move, more than half a million of them serving business premises.

Openreach is also making the old lines more expensive to keep. Its February announcement set out price rises for its legacy Wholesale Line Rental (WLR) products of 20% from 1 April and a further 40% from 1 July, with a final 40% due on 1 October. Openreach says that effectively doubles the rental cost of legacy lines compared with 2025 rates.

The same announcement warned that while many providers have migrated much of their customer base, “a number of smaller or specialist providers have been slower to act”. It listed what else sits on the old lines: fire and burglar alarms, payment terminals, lifts and security cameras. James Lilley, director of All-IP at Openreach, put the advice to businesses bluntly: “If your provider hasn’t contacted you, you need to ask why.”

So in July 2026, a small firm choosing who supplies its line is also choosing who handles the move of everything plugged into it. That is a different decision from choosing who reads the water meter.

One bill does not fix the line

A single provider relationship solves billing and admin. It does not, on its own, solve resilience, migration planning or how quickly a fault gets fixed. Those depend on the provider’s telecoms capability, whatever else it sells.

Any small business weighing a bundled offer, from a utility supplier, a telecoms specialist or an IT firm, can ask the same questions. Which network does the service run on, and who is responsible when it fails? Has the provider checked what in the building still depends on a copper line, from the alarm panel to the card machine? What are the contract length and exit charges for the connectivity element, and can it be ended without unpicking the water or waste contract?

A provider that answers those questions well deserves the business, whether it started in water or in telecoms. A provider that cannot answer them is offering convenience on the bill and risk on the line.

New entrants still matter

None of this is a case against multi-utility providers. More providers competing for small-business connectivity is good for buyers, and a well-funded entrant with an established small-business customer base, a platform and an acquisition budget could push others to raise their standard. John Healey, investor at BGF, pointed to Everflow’s “strong foothold within the UK SME water market”. Turning that foothold into connectivity customers will depend on whether those customers trust it with something that stops the business when it breaks.

BGF and OakNorth are betting that small firms want fewer suppliers. Many probably do. The ones who do well from that bet will be those who ask the connectivity questions first and enjoy the single bill second.

One bill is a convenience. A working line is a dependency, and small firms should buy it like one.