Eblana Photonics moves into manufacturing

6 June 2002 -- Eblana Photonics, Dublin, a provider of advanced laser communications products, has announced new funding that brings its total investment to Eur3.6m in just over one year.

The companyEblana Photonics is a spin out from Trinity College Dublin, the Irish National Microelectronics Research Centre and Enterprise Ireland, which are shareholders in the company. Other investment has come from a combination of Irish and US private equity sources. The new funding is being provided by ACT Venture Capital and Enterprise Ireland.

Eblana's proprietary technologies allow for the first time economic manufacture of high performance laser components for deployment in mass market communications.

James O'Gorman, Eblana's CEO said, "With this latest funding we will begin moving our products from development into manufacturing and onward into the market. Our products will allow communications service providers to economically deliver a range of new bandwidth-hungry services, such as downstreamed video, interactive video conferencing and video telephony".

John Flynn, Partner at ACT Venture Capital, said: "Eblana is a truly exciting company and it has has demonstrated an impressive approach in the fusion of world class technology, innovation and product development. We anticipate that Eblana will become a key player in the global broadband access communications services market which is only now beginning its roll-out."

Eblana Photonics will grow its core team over the next six months with a focus on the recruitment of engineering, product development and marketing staff. O'Gorman added, "Eblana's technology and manufacturing processes lend themselves to a lean, outsourced mode of component production."