Sources inform “Globes” that ColorChip is about to complete a $4 million financing round. ColorChip has raised $6.5 million to date. New investors are joining Eurofund and Walden Israel in the current round.
ColorChip develops glass-based components and modules for the fiber to the home (FTTH) telecommunications market. This rapidly growing sector is mainly an intermediate stage between current cable and ADSL links and optical links.
ColorChip CEO Amotz Shemi, a former entrepreneur and CEO of Oneway Technologies, which closed in 2001, said, "ColorChip focuses on waveguide - light and wave processors, creating a very cheap optical package. We've succeeded in entering new markets by significantly lowering the cost of optical components. This is a $2 billion market that has been growing rapidly in the past six months. The receiver-transmitter market is expanding both for households and thanks to datacom - fiber optic-based data communications and storage networks. Our technology is proprietary, both in the technological sense and because our products help to slash factor costs. Large companies are therefore interested in our products."
"Globes": What will you use the financing round for?
Shemi: "The capital will be used to help us bring next generation products to market. Until now, we've developed passive optical splitters, and we're now entering the market for active splitters, products with lasers or waves that include electronics. Thanks to our special packaging abilities, which mean components don’t have to be hermetically sealed as in the past, we can cut the cost to our customers."
What are your markets?
"Optical network markets and non-communications applications, such as network equipment and optical facilities for the medical and military markets. The FTTH market is bringing fiber optics to the home, enabling communications speeds of 100 Mbps, replacing other systems, such as cable. In Israel, fiber optic networks are popular in projects like Ben Gurion Airport 2000, but not yet in the home market."
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on May 10, 2004