Bringing Connections
To Life
2023 ANNUAL REPORT
IN 2024, NUVERA IS FOCUSED ON ADVANCING KEY PRIORITIES TO DRIVE REVENUE GROWTH:
- Make customer connections, both new and conversions, to the Nuvera fiber network.
- Leverage new market expansion opportunities to drive revenue growth by serving identified new communities not currently served by fiber.
- Complete all in-progress fiber construction projects and previously awarded rural grant projects.
The path forward is clear and creates a durable future for Nuvera as a leading southern Minnesota connection provider delivering value to our communities, customers, and shareholders.
Signed,
Glenn Zerbe
CEO/President
Perry Meyer
Board Chair
ACCELERATING POTENTIAL
Over a century of innovation and service to customers has allowed Nuvera to fulfill our purpose to connect customers and communities. Today we’re accelerating the potential of that legacy to unlock our full growth potential like never before in a more interconnected world.
2023 was marked by significant progress in our multi-year, $200 million Nuvera Gig Cities fiber internet infrastructure project. In 2023, we reached 53% of our customers with fiber. We will continue to deploy the new network at scale, expecting to reach more than 80% of our customers and continue expanding into new markets.
After two years of building a new foundation for company growth and operationalizing for the future, Nuvera gained new momentum on a path to growth as a leading regional fiber broadband provider.
IN 2023, NUVERA:
- Reached 17,000 incremental homes and businesses with the fiber network
- Surpassed the halfway point for the initial Gig Cities fiber network construction plan.
- Completed construction in the communities of Aurelia, Glencoe, Mazeppa, Goodhue and Hanska. While fiber passings are completed in these communities, customer connections to our fiber network will continue for years to come.
- Facilitated 35 projects in 21 communities expanding Nuvera’s network to serve more of Prior Lake and Savage and extending to Arlington, Dassel, and Hector.
- Connected our ten thousandth customer to Nuvera’s fiber network, growing connections by 70% from the previous year.
In addition to these accomplishments, a key indicator of our success has been the organic growth of customers, particularly in fiber-ready communities and neighborhoods. Historically, Nuvera has grown through acquisitions. Today we are generating our own new customers.
In the last two years, Nuvera has seen renewed growth, enabled by the products and services added through the Gig Cities project. Today, Nuvera is growing in virtually all its markets, including the city of New Ulm where we have always had a strong market share, thanks to our local, historical roots. In the past year, even with that substantial market share, we are experiencing organic growth as fiber offerings have expanded.
Customers are enthusiastic about fiber internet, and we are starting to see the positive results of our collective investments.
THE JOURNEY FORWARD
Nuvera’s Unwavering Commitment to cultivate value for our stakeholders is yielding results as we journey forward. Nuvera’s focus on operational excellence and strong contractor relationships enabled us to rapidly transform our company to meet the moment of increasing customer demand. In two short years, we staked our position as a strong competitive fiber broadband provider.
NUVERA APPROACHES 2024 WITH
THREE PRIMARY OBJECTIVES:
- Meet customer connection targets, adding new and existing customers to our fiber faster. Fixed wireless and copper technologies continue to be viable options for those currently outside the fiber network reach.
- Fully utilize our fiber capabilities with another year of 70% fiber connection growth.
- Complete all in-progress fiber construction projects and previously awarded rural grant projects.
- Continue extending our fiber network with another 10,000 passings, half of which will come from new edge-out communities, further increasing the customers we serve.
With these operational goals in mind, and the early success of the first two years of construction and growth supporting us, Nuvera expects to see incremental improvements in each of the coming quarters. The significant investment Nuvera has implemented to the front end of the Gig Cities project is already generating returns as we move into the second half of the project.
More than ever, our communities and the stakeholders within them require fiber fast internet to connect to what’s important to them. Every day our customers use Nuvera to connect to remote workplaces, activate a growing number of smart home applications, shop online, access virtual medical appointments, and live stream sports and entertainment.
THRIVING BUSINESSES,
STRONGER COMMUNITIES
Thriving businesses make stronger communities and today’s entrepreneurs need reliable fiber connections to manage operations and provide a great customer experience. Nuvera connections provide businesses the opportunity to succeed on Main Street and in the digital economy.
Sweet Haven Tonics
Leah Pekrul started Sweet Haven Tonics craft cocktail concentrates, as a hobby. Soon Pekrul’s concept of craft cocktails made simple took off and, before long, she left her day job as a teacher and expanded her hobby into a home-based business selling all across Minnesota.
After just a few years in business, Sweet Haven Tonics opened a tasting lounge and retail location in downtown New Ulm, and has a flourishing online business, shipping products all over the country. Pekrul’s business could not have grown at the pace it has without a reliable, fast internet connection.
In 2023, Sweet Haven Tonics shipped product to 41 states. She works with a distributor that sells to about 300 restaurants, bars, and liquor stores all over the country. In early 2024, she began selling her product on Amazon.
“I recently had a two-hour video call with an Amazon rep to discuss ways to make sales more successful on their site,” Pekrul said. “If you don’t have a reliable connection for important calls like that, you come across as unprofessional.” But that’s not something she usually thinks about.
The biggest compliment I can give is that we don’t ever think about the internet connection because it just works,” she said. “It’s there in the background supporting everything we do.”
Martin Luther College
Martin Luther College (MLC) is a small institution in New Ulm with less than 1,000 students.
“As a place with so many different users across several buildings, it’s a pretty complex system. Not only was Nuvera able to provide the system we needed, but our two fully redundant 10 Gig ethernet circuits from Nuvera also greatly reduce the possibility of any downtime,” said Robert Martens, Director of Information Technology at MLC.
Each one of the dorms can fully utilize their building’s capacity. In the past, one dorm may have been acting as a bandwidth hog, causing another dorm to experience some lag. That doesn’t happen anymore.”
Martens pointed out that many of their students live off campus and their entire graduate program is an online curriculum so the need for students to reach their campus portal is critical, as well.
City of Glencoe
The City of Glencoe’s motto is “Small City – Big Future.” Glencoe’s city leaders know that a burgeoning community needs certain pillars to support the innovations of their businesses and quality of life desired by their residents.
That’s why they were thrilled that Nuvera completed the bulk of the fiber construction project – more than 2,700 passings – within the city limits of Glencoe in 2023. By all indications, the residents and business owners are also thrilled to have fiber available in their town: in 2023, Nuvera grew 13% in connections in Glencoe to achieve a remarkable 55% market share.
“We’ve worked with Nuvera for nearly 10 years. They’ve been our managed IT provider for the City of Glencoe, for all the city buildings,” said Glencoe City Administrator Mark Larson. “We were a little ahead of the fiber curve in that we had fiber put in all our city buildings a few years ago. We immediately noticed the improvement in speed and reliability.”
“Newly installed fiber internet has been received well by residents across the city,” Larson said, adding that the city features Nuvera’s fiber internet as an important benefit to businesses considering relocation to their city.
Homes Connected to Life
Fiber-fast connectivity has never been more important to the households on our network. Families and individuals are active in streaming movies and TV, working from, or running a business from home, online learning, gaming, social media, telemedicine and more.
OUR CUSTOMERS TELL NUVERA HOW FIBER KEEPS THEIR HOME CONNECTED TO LIFE:
Work from home has vastly improved and allowed me to get more tickets completed as I can now connect to more devices at the same time. It has also helped greatly with gaming…I used to have to plan to download games, or get stuck waiting 10-30 minutes, if there was a sudden update to the game.”
THOMAS R., GLENCOE
Before Nuvera Fiber, it was a common occurrence that I would join a video conference call, my kids would be playing games or streaming on their devices, and my wife would run into trouble streaming a show on Hulu. With 1 Gig fiber from Nuvera, there is no interference among my family members, and our internet service has been 100% reliable.”
BRIAN T., PRIOR LAKE
The moment Nuvera offered a residential service that was price competitive, I switched. After moving to Nuvera…I rarely have issues with my internet service and have had an amazing and pleasant experience.”
BILL W., SAVAGE
Fiber has been great for both its low latency as well as its high bandwidth. When running a business and doing work at home, upload speeds are equally as important as download speeds. Nuvera not only keeps my business running but my family happy in today’s online world.”
MARK S., PRIOR LAKE
CREATING CONNECTIONS
In 2023, Nuvera fostered connections with our stakeholders in a significant way, by delivering on the comprehensive fiber growth vision that was established more than two years ago. Nuvera is delivering on its mission to be a leader in fiber internet services in southern Minnesota, with sustained growth well into the future, with the critical support of our customers, communities, employees, and shareholders.
Customers
Nuvera provides the best internet experience possible with Home Wi-Fi, local customer service and tech support, and the lightning-fast fiber connectivity consumers need to be successful and happy in their everyday lives.
In the past year, the enthusiasm among our fiber customers to participate in new and expanding offerings such as live-streamed sports, entertainment, video conferencing and real-time fully interactive gaming was evident. As a result, 70% of them chose the highest speeds available. The demands of an increasingly fast world are felt across our service areas and Nuvera is meeting those needs for our customers.
Communities
The pillars of a strong community – schools, government, religious organizations, businesses, and more, have one thing in common: in order to compete effectively, they need a reliable, fast connection to the rest of the world. Nuvera’s investment in fiber facilities is having a ripple effect of success to each of our communities. Nuvera’s network is prepared now to enable smart cities of the future. Our network infrastructure is positioned to help communities drive economic opportunities and attract businesses, tech incubators and more.
Nuvera is also invested in creating valuable career paths in our communities, with nearly 70% of the costs of Nuvera Gig Cities supporting regional employers and driving the local economy.
Employees
In a year that presented a challenging environment for hiring and growth for many companies, Nuvera continued to grow our employee base. Nuvera is focused on strategically growing parts of the business that meet the new operational needs of the business. Nuvera also invests in contract partners that allow us to deploy the new fiber network at scale. As Nuvera prepares to connect more customers than ever before in 2024, our teams are committed to providing expert local service that simply can’t be matched by our competitors.
Shareholders
The pivotal role of shareholders in the growth and long-term success of Nuvera cannot be overstated. Shareholders are not just our institutional and retail investors; they are key stakeholders who contribute to the vitality and trajectory of the company. Their investment, ensuring our relevance as a business for decades to come, represents a vote of confidence in our vision, team, and the direction of the company.