Optical switch developer Calient Technologies, Inc. says it has raised a $27 million round of venture financing and named Jag Setlur, a 20-year finance veteran, as its chief financial officer. The funding came from a combination of new and existing investors.
Calient says the new money will be used to enhance its portfolio of 3D MEMS optical circuit switching systems, currently led by the flagship S320 photonic switching system (see “Calient debuts high-density photonic switch for data centers”) and provide working capital to expand production as it focuses on new applications in software defined networking in data center networks under chairman and CEO Atiq Raza (along the lines of “Calient plugs S320 optical switch into SDN with OpenFlow support”).
Setlur, meanwhile, joins Calient from July Systems where he served as chief operating officer and CFO. Prior to that, Setlur served as CFO for Cotendo Inc., where he closed two rounds of funding of nearly $30 million and managed the strategic positioning and sale of the company to Akamai. During his career, Setlur has also served in leadership roles at NetXen Inc. (acquired by Qlogic Inc.), VeriSign, CoWare (acquired by Synopsys), enStage, iPrint Technologies (acquired by American TonerServ Corp.), TCSI, and UB Networks.
“With this funding and our recent growth, I believe now is the time for an experienced CFO like Jag to join the senior management team,” said Raza. I am pleased to have him on board and look forward to leveraging his expertise as we continue to develop and optimize the Calient product portfolio and expand our market footprint.”
Calient’s optical switch technology is based on its patented deep-silicon plasma etch process that is used to make 3D MEMS mirrors. The company designs and fabricates the MEMS-based optical systems in its fabrication facility located at its corporate headquarters in Santa Barbara, CA.
The company last dipped into the venture market in 2011, when it raised $19.4 million (see "Calient Technologies raises $19.4 million for optical switching for enterprise, cloud computing markets").
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