17 October 2003 Monrovia, CA Lightwave -- Xponent Photonics has closed its Series C financing with $18 million in new capital. Investors include El Dorado Ventures, Morgenthaler Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners, and Walden International. The financing will be used to fund product development, sales, and marketing.
Xponent's Surface Mount Photonics products are based on fundamental packaging breakthroughs that bring semiconductor assembly economics to the optical industry, say company representatives. Xponent's first products have been designed to deliver leading price/performance optical devices to metro and access applications in the networking and communications industries.
"We entered the financing discussions knowing that Xponent had a unique technological advantage and an executive team with a proven ability to execute," contends Steve Krausz, general partner at U.S. Venture Partners. "After our discussions with interested partners and customers, we decided to significantly increase our planned investment in the company, convinced that Xponent also has a great strategy and a large market opportunity."
"Our ability to raise a round in this market of an amount 50% larger than planned is a strong vote of confidence," adds Jeff Rittichier, Xponent's chief executive officer. "The issue of financial stability is now off the table; we have the capital to deliver products, win customers, and grow revenues by radically simplifying the way photonics products are built," he asserts.