Siemens Venture Capital joins PON components supplier BroadLight's latest funding round
March 15, 2004 Ramat Gan, Israel--BroadLight, a supplier of communication semiconductors and optical transceivers for passive optical networks (PONs), announced today that new investor Siemens Venture Capital (SVC) added to BroadLight's Series C round, bringing the total round to US$13.5 million. This round had a first closing on February 11, 2004 led by new investor Israel Seed Partners, with strong participation by prior investors Star Ventures, Delta Ventures and two strategic investors.
"Siemens is investing in BroadLight because the company has the product mix, business plan and management team to be successful," said Bjoern Christensen, president and chief executive at SVC. "Broadlight supplies all of the key building blocks for tier-1 equipment vendors to rapidly develop and bring to market FTTP [fiber-to-the-premises] systems - a compelling position to be in to compete in this space."
During 2003, BroadLight gained market recognition as the incumbent broadband PON (BPON) component vendor by supplying components to FTTP system vendors. The company is currently shipping production quantities of its BPON media access controllers (MACs), optical transceivers, and software to vendors worldwide.
"We are excited to welcome SVC as investor," said Anthony T. Maher, managing partner at Star Ventures and chairman of BroadLight. "BroadLight will use these funds to increase its commitment to next generation PON products. Wide availability of standard compliant chipsets helps reducing systems cost, and accelerates deployment of FTTP services worldwide."
"We are pleased with BroadLight's rapid customer traction over the last year," said Gerd Goette, investment partner at SVC. "With our investment, we are helping the company strengthen its leading position in the emerging market for triple play--voice video and data BPON and GPON [Gigabit PON] technology solutions."
The funds will be used by BroadLight to set up its headquarters in the United States, expand its customer base, and increase research and development efforts for standards compliant PON transceivers, semiconductor components and software stacks.