MARCH 30, 2007 -- Xponent Photonics (search for Xponent), which manufactures surface-mount photonic components, has secured $23 million in Series 3 funding in a round led by American River Ventures, which is making its first investment in the company. In addition to American River Ventures, Xponent's existing investors including Arcturus Capital, Eastward Capital, El Dorado Ventures, HOYA Holdings, Samsung, US Venture Partners, and Walden International participated in the funding.
"This new round of financing will allow us to accelerate the market penetration of surface-mount photonics beyond the FTTX market. Xponent is already sampling low-cost, high-performance optical components to datacom, CATV, and consumer markets," says Jeffrey S. Rittichier, Xponent's president and chief executive officer.
Following the round, Barbara Grant, partner at American River Ventures, has joined the Xponent board of directors. "We are pleased to welcome Dr. Barbara Grant to our board of directors. Barbara is a former CEO herself and has deep operating expertise in wafer fab operations from her experience at IBM," adds Rittichier.
"The communications industry has been trying to build optical components like semiconductors for the past 20 years with little success until Xponent's revolutionary Surface Mount Photonic platform was introduced," Grant comments. "The most exciting development at Xponent isn't just their groundbreaking technology; it is that they've successfully transferred the technology into volume production at merchant Si foundries and conventional IC packaging operations."
Grant continues, "Xponent is the only company shipping production volumes of active devices based on a silicon platform. We're thrilled to be working with Xponent's team and are confident that they are on the road to a great success."
Xponent is manufacturing production volumes of FTTX components based on its Surface Mount Photonic technology. The company is leveraging the manufacturing assets and expertise of merchant wafer foundries and traditional semiconductor packaging technology in attempts to improve performance while lowering costs of optical components. The company has extended the technology in its FTTX components into cable TV and 10G telecom applications; this week the company announced the availability of a 10-Gbit MSA receiver for short- and medium-range applications.
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