Vivek Raina & Excitel: Wiring a Billion Dreams, One Fiber Connection at a Time
Discover Vivek Raina's journey with Excitel, democratizing broadband in India. Learn about their unique strategy, funding, and vision for a connected nation.
In a nation rapidly embracing the digital age, access to fast, reliable, and affordable internet is no longer a luxury but a fundamental necessity. At the forefront of this revolution is Vivek Raina, the Co-founder and CEO of Excitel Broadband. His journey, marked by personal resilience and deep industry expertise, has culminated in building a company that is not just laying fiber optic cables but is weaving a network of opportunities and connecting millions to the digital mainstream. Excitel's story is one of audacious vision, innovative strategy, and a relentless pursuit of democratizing internet access across India.
Vivek Raina recently shared invaluable insights into his entrepreneurial journey and the mechanics of Excitel's disruptive business model on the Founder Thesis podcast. His conversation with host Akshay Datt offers a deep dive into the nuts and bolts of the broadband industry and Excitel's unique approach.
Check out the video of the conversation here or read on for insights.
From Adversity to Ambition: The Making of Vivek Raina 🌅
Vivek Raina's path to entrepreneurship was forged in the crucible of significant personal adversity. Born in Srinagar, Kashmir, his early life was profoundly impacted by the Kashmiri Pandit Exodus in 1990. At the tender age of 13, then in Class 9, Raina and his family were forced to flee their ancestral home, transitioning from a 14-room house to a one-room rented apartment in Jammu. This experience of displacement and witnessing his parents' unwavering commitment to education, despite financial hardships, instilled in him a profound resilience and a determined mindset.
"Every failure teaches you something and makes you a better version of yourself."
His academic journey reflects a blend of pragmatism and passion. He pursued a Diploma in Electronics and Communication Engineering from the Government College of Jammu (1994-1997), concurrently earning a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Jammu University through a correspondence course. This foundation was capped with an MBA in Marketing from Pune University (1999-2001), equipping him with a versatile skill set for the corporate world. More recently, he also completed a CXO Leadership Program from Cornell University.
A Career Steeped in Broadband: Honing the Blueprint 📞
Vivek Raina's corporate career, spanning over a decade before founding Excitel, was deeply entrenched in the Indian wired broadband sector. He began his journey in 2001.
"My first job was in a broadband company, a wire broadband company. I'm talking about 2001, and ever since that day till now, I have been just doing one thing, selling broadband in various companies at various levels."
His career trajectory saw him in pivotal roles at major telecom organizations:
Hathway: Business Development Officer. This was his initial foray, working with what was then DOCSIS technology (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) using existing cable TV wires.
"The wires are similar to [cable] TV... the technology is called data system interface specification, which means use existing KB [cable] wire to deliver broadband... and the speech [speeds] we were to delivering where 128 kbps, 256 kbps, best package in our bouquet of packages was five 12 Kbps Gold Premier we used to call it, and now [Excitel] start from 200 MBPS."
Reliance Communications: Manager, Wireline Broadband Rollout (4 years). This role provided him with invaluable experience in large-scale network deployment and project management.
Hathway (again): Manager, Business Development (North ISP). Here, he focused on ISP business growth in a key region.
Digicable Network India Pvt Ltd (ISP Div.): Regional Head, North & Central India (February 2009 - May 2015). This leadership role involved P&L responsibility and expanding business operations across a significant geographical area.
This extensive experience gave him a ringside view of the broadband industry's intricacies, its prevailing practices, and, crucially, its unaddressed gaps and customer pain points like Fair Usage Policies (FUPs) and low speeds inadequate for home entertainment.
The Spark of Excitel: Bridging India's Digital Divide 💡
The ambition to be an entrepreneur was a long-held dream for Vivek, dating back to his MBA days. He observed that broadband in India was largely marketed as a productivity tool, not an entertainment gateway, and was often crippled by speed throttling after data limits.
The genesis of Excitel came from identifying critical market gaps and a vision to offer something radically different. He met his Bulgarian co-founders—Victor Francess, Nikolai Gorchilov, and Plamen Petkov—who had prior ISP success in Europe and were looking for opportunities in India.
"What they pointed out was very important... one of the issues that you have, why the penetration is not increasing, one of the major issues is that you are still having very, very low speeds, which means users cannot watch videos. This cannot be used for videos. It can be used only for surfing the net... At home, they want leisure, they want [entertainment]... If you increase the speed 10 times and users can watch videos and home, then you have a chance."
This led to the core ideas for Excitel:
Truly Unlimited, High-Speed Internet: He envisioned a service free from FUPs, delivering speeds that could transform home entertainment.
"When we started in 2015, we never had any fair usage policy, unfair usage policy, I would call them. All our plans were completely unlimited."
Targeting the Underserved: While most players focused on the top 30-35% of planned urban areas, Excitel saw immense potential in the 70% of urban India living in unstructured or semi-planned areas.
"In India, 35% of all Indian cities are fully planned, but 75% is all on its own... that's not where 70% live. 70% of urban is in those areas, which have all on their own lanes and by lanes... these areas have opened as potential markets."
After a decade of pitching his ideas and facing rejections, he, along with his co-founders, secured initial funding in 2014, and Excitel was officially founded in September 2015.
Excitel's Disruptive Strategy: The Asset-Light Revolution 🚀
Excitel’s strategy is built on challenging industry norms and a relentless focus on customer value.
Broadband-First, Entertainment-Centric: Unlike telcos with multiple offerings, Excitel is singularly focused on delivering an "unshackled, high-performance fiber experience" primarily for entertainment. When Excitel started, the normal speed in Delhi was 1-2 Mbps; Excitel launched with 20 Mbps plans so users could actually stream HD video.
Affordability & Transparent Pricing: Excitel aimed for a price point around ₹500 per month, making high-speed internet comparable to cable TV bills, thus encouraging migration. They committed to transparent pricing without hidden costs or complex lock-ins.
The LCO Partnership Model (Uberization of Broadband): This is a cornerstone of Excitel's capital efficiency and rapid scaling. Excitel partners with over 3,000 Local Cable Operators (LCOs). These local entrepreneurs invest in and manage the last-mile fiber delivery. Excitel provides the core infrastructure, branding, sales, customer onboarding, billing, and support, sharing revenue with the LCOs.
"We're tied up with local partners in every such locality, and these local partners are local investors. They invest in on the fiber and lay the fiber and maintain the fiber while everything else we do... We bring core fiber up to their place... So what Uberization of broadband we have done."
Vivek further explained on the Founder Thesis podcast: "80% of all CapEx is last mile. Now this 80% is outsourced to many, many local entrepreneurs. That's why we have been much, much more, I think as she's 30, 40% more capital [efficient] than any telco." In Delhi alone, Excitel has 700 such partners and has laid approximately 6,000-6,500 kilometers of core fiber in a self-healing MPLS network architecture.
100% Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH): Excitel transitioned fully to FTTH technology by 2017-18, ensuring high-quality, stable, and high-speed connectivity. Speeds offered range from 100/200 Mbps up to 1 Gbps.
"Ultimately people realize that none of these technologies [Coaxial/DSL] are going to scale with the scaling bandwidth... one had to rely fully on fiber. And now the world, the world [runs on] fiber to home."
Growth Trajectory: Milestones & Numbers 📈
Excitel's journey has been marked by impressive growth in subscribers, revenue, and investor confidence.
Initial Traction: In its first year (2015), with an initial investment of about 1.5 million Euros.
"We had promised them 50,000 users in the first year rather... we took our internal target, 50,000 users in the first year and 35... thousand users is what we had told investors, promise them. [We] deliver one lakh in the first year itself."
Subscriber Milestones:
Reached 500,000 users after its Series B funding.
As of the podcast recording (likely late 2022/early 2023), Excitel had around 750,000 users.
The goal was to reach 1 million users by the end of that calendar year and 2 million users by the end of 2023.
By late 2023/early 2024, Excitel surpassed 1 million subscribers across more than 50 cities. Delhi NCR is its largest market with 500,000 subscribers.
"I think we have around four lakh users, 4.2, 4.3 lakh users, reaching around half a million users in Delhi in last five years of our existence... probably will be number two in Delhi."
Revenue Growth:
FY 2019-20 (FY20): ₹139.43 Crore
FY 2021-22 (FY22): ₹296 Crore
FY 2023-24 (FY24): ₹486.84 Crore
FY 2024-25 (FY25): Total Income ₹499.72 Crore (Revenue from Operations ₹489.76 Crore). The company reported a net loss of ₹212.37 Crore for FY25, up from ₹120.09 Crore in FY24, indicating heavy investment in expansion.
Funding Rounds:
Seed (2015): ~$1.5 million (1.5 million Euros) from a Bulgarian VC fund.
Series B (Oct 2018): $4.61 million from NEVEQ and Impetus Capital.
Series C (May 2022): $11.5 million from BlackPeak Capital, NEVEQ, Impetus Capital, and angel investors.
Total Disclosed Funding: $16.1 million through these rounds.
Planned Round (Early 2025): Aiming to raise ~$200 million, with interest from major institutional investors. This is intended to fuel its IPTV rollout and cable-to-fiber conversion strategy.
Product Innovation: Beyond Just Speed 📺
Excitel's core offering is high-speed, truly unlimited FTTH internet. Building on this, they've strategically ventured into:
Excitel TV (IPTV): Integrating live television (550+ channels), OTT apps (21+), and high-speed fiber into comprehensive packages. This service aims to convert India's vast base of ~60 million cable TV households by replacing legacy set-top boxes with modern Android-enabled IPTV boxes, often provided with the subscription.
Target: 2 million new IPTV users within an 18-month timeframe.
Wi-Fi Gram Technology: Designed to provide an optimized wireless experience within homes, focusing on speed, coverage, signal quality, and security.
Future Tech: Plans include AI-driven content recommendations and voice control for IPTV.
Vivek maintains a pragmatic view on technology, distinguishing between mobile and fixed broadband needs:
"5G, 4G, 3G any G for that matter... [are] mobile technologies... very good when you are on the mobile, on the go... But as soon as you enter home, it starts having problems... the higher you go in frequency, the more would be the problem... the ability to [penetrate] walls goes down... For home, the other thing that there is the limitation of spectrum... Here [with fiber] we're getting a dedicated wire to your home meant for you alone."
Leadership & Vision: Connecting "BHARAT" 🇮🇳
Vivek Raina's personal vision is to "connect BHARAT" and revolutionize lives through unlimited internet access. His leadership philosophy emphasizes:
Perseverance and Resilience
Innovation
Strategic Decision-Making
Alignment of Passion and Strength:
"Do something you're passionate about—nobody can beat you at what you're good at."
The Power of Leverage: Exemplified by the LCO model.
Team Empowerment: Excitel has a direct staff of around 3,000, with an additional 7,000-8,000 people aligned with the company through its partners.
He defines entrepreneurship as a mindset rooted in trust, experimentation, and making a meaningful impact.
"Entrepreneurship is not just a business...it's a zeal to build our own interest to solve the problems faced by millions of customers out there."
Navigating the Competitive Landscape 🌊
Excitel operates in a market with giants like Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel. However, its focused strategy on specific urban segments and its asset-light model provide a competitive edge. The company has been consistently recognized by Ookla as India's fastest fixed or wireline broadband service provider, a testament to its network quality.
"All these well capitalized players, telcos are primarily operating in this 30, 35% of urban India, which is structured... It's very difficult for them to massage and, you know, enter these territories where 70% of the urban Indians live."
While TRAI data for overall national subscriber volume (which includes legacy bases and bundled mobile services of large telcos) may not always list Excitel in the absolute top tier, its dominance and speed leadership in its operational areas are clear.
Mentoring the Next Generation: Launchpad Kashmir 🏔️
Beyond Excitel, Vivek Raina is passionate about fostering entrepreneurship. He is a Co-Founder and Mentor at Launchpad Kashmir (June 2024 - Present), aiming to guide and support burgeoning entrepreneurs in the Jammu & Kashmir region, leveraging his experience to nurture a new generation of business leaders.
The Road Ahead 🛣️
Excitel, under Vivek Raina's stewardship, is poised for significant growth. The ambition to convert millions of cable TV homes to fiber via IPTV, coupled with expansion into more Tier II/III cities and even rural areas, underscores a commitment to deepening India's digital footprint. While challenges like intense competition and the need for capital remain, Excitel's proven disruptive model, customer-centric approach, and clear vision for a connected India position it as a key player in the nation's ongoing digital transformation. Vivek Raina's journey with Excitel is more than a business success story; it's a blueprint for leveraging innovation and local partnerships to solve large-scale problems and empower a nation.
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Until the next founder's thesis📕,
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