27 January 2011

Photonic integrated circuit firm CyOptics raises $50m

Indium phosphide-based optical chip and component maker CyOptics Inc of Lehigh Valley, PA, USA has raised $50m in a funding round led by Israel’s JVP (Jerusalem Venture Partners, a global venture capital firm with over $820m under its management) and joined by other existing investors Sprout Group, Birchmere Ventures and Eurofund. The transaction entailed the secondary purchase of shares from several existing shareholders and the financing of additional growth capital.

Founded in 1999, CyOptics has InP design, device fabrication and packaging operations in Lehigh Valley, PA; a silica photonic lightwave circuit (PLC) fab in South Plainfield, NJ; and planar automated packaging & testing in Matamoros, Mexico. “CyOptics is uniquely positioned to bring together all of the critical technologies required to design and manufacture high-performance optical devices,” claims CEO Ed Coringrato.

In 2010, CyOptics surpassed more than $100m in revenue and ended the year with a strong sales backlog, giving good visibility into 2011. The firm serves more than 100 customers worldwide, including telecom system OEMs, module level suppliers, and major defense contractors. In particular, CyOptics supplies to the high-volume consumer fiber-to-the home (FTTH) market, the US defense market, and next-generation photonic integrated circuit applications.

CyOptics believes that, driven by demand from wireless backhaul, cloud computing, data-center congestion, video downloading and social networking, the photonics industry is once again entering a growth phase. Bandwidth demands are doubling every 18 months, and the optical transmit and receive sub-components designed and manufactured by CyOptics are enabling this growth.

“This incremental investment will help to fund the working capital needed to bolster near-term revenue growth and to support R&D required to deliver the next-generation products and services our customers require,” says Coringrato.

“As the relative share of web traffic comprising media and video continues to grow, our communications networks will be required to deliver unprecedented levels of bandwidth,” says JVP’s founder & managing partner Erel Margalit, who serves as chairman of CyOptics’ board. “CyOptics’ high-speed, high-performance solutions will increasingly enable the fulfillment of consumer demand for evolving entertainment, educational, and gaming applications. The company's accelerated growth over the past 12 months is a clear testament to this,” he believes.

“Over the past decade, we have worked closely with the CyOptics’ management to build the company into a leading independent global organization,” Margalit continues. “The firm’s strong underlying technology, broad portfolio of products, and successful acquisition and integration capabilities position it for continued growth.”

Following the latest funding transaction, JVP will nominate an additional member to CyOptics’ board of directors.

Tags: CyOptics InP

Visit: www.cyoptics.com