Privately held integrated optical communications component and sub-system developer ColorChip of Yokneam, Israel has raised $20m in new growth funding to ramp-up operations and drive an accelerated product roadmap. The funding is in addition to the previous $25m funding in November 2015. Overall the company has raised $45m in the past year.
The funding comes from Gemini Israel Funds, BRM Group, IGP, Vintage, HGL Capital and Viola Credit. To date, the firm has raised $80m, with IGP, Gemini and BRM leading the previous funding rounds.
With Internet services becoming more data intensive due to streaming HD video, virtual reality, cloud computing, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices, there is a growing need for new technologies to help datacom manage all the exponential growth in traffic, ColorChip says, claiming that its optical communication solutions are well positioned to help solve the growing bandwidth demand of the web.
"We have so much support and confidence from our investors and are going to utilize the funds to recruit additional employees as well as scale up our operations to better serve the growing demands of the datacom market," says CEO Yigal Ezra.
Founded in 2001 by Dr Shimon Eckhouse and professor Shlomo Rushin of the School of Engineering at Tel Aviv University, ColorChip provides dense, hyper-scale optical transceivers for telecom/datacom markets as well as planar lightwave circuit (PLC) optical splitters for FTTx markets, after developing unique 'SystemOnGlass' hybrid optical integrated circuit technology.
SystemOnGlass comprises dense multi-lane photonic integrated circuits (PICs) that include both active optoelectronic components (indium phosphide-based lasers and photo-detectors) and passive optical components (PLCs).
The firm uses glass wafers to industrialize its optical devices, allowing for what is claimed to be cost-effective, rapid and highly scalable production, and bringing efficiencies commonly only seen in semiconductor fabrication to optical communications.
ColorChip is also claimed to be unique in Israeli, since it not only develops its solutions but is also vertically integrated and manufactures its core technology in its own fabrication plant in Israel. The fab utilizes the firm's unique IP and is a critical component of its core technology, allowing the industrialized manufacturing of optical assemblies.
ColorChip is targeting the high-speed transceiver 40G/100G datacom market, which is predicted to reach $1.7bn by 2019. The firm is hence in the process of scaling up its operations, including hiring new employees in Israel, the USA, and remote site facilities. The new funding will directly support these efforts.
