Israeli start-up Lambda Crossing is closing down, and two of its three division are about to be sold for a few million dollars. Company president and CEO Rafi Koriat notified the company’s 50 employees yesterday that the company was closing down. The employees will not be fired; most of them will continue working until the deals for sale of the company’s two divisions are completed.
Founded in 1999, Lambda Crossing dealt in optical components, one of the sectors hit hardest in the deflation of the high-tech bubble. The company raised a total of $30 million from a long list of investors, including venture capital funds Star Ventures, Gemini Israel Funds, Lord Young’s Young Associates, the Chinese Development Industrial Bank, Agilent Technologies (NYSE: A), and Lucent Venture Partners.
Gemini Israel venture partner Dr. Orna Berry, who represented Gemini on the Lambda Crossing board of directors, said today that the company’s investors and management were acting on two fronts to sell its intellectual property and assets for $6 million.
Berry added, “The company developed components for end-user cellular devices, and it appears that we’ll be able to sell this line to a large international components manufacturer, although the deal hasn’t been closed yet. Furthermore, the company’s optics division has been converted to the defense sector in recent sector in recent months, and the processing of selling is also underway. The optics division won’t be sold as an independent unit; its know-how will be absorbed by the defense division.”
Published by Globes [online] - www.globes.co.il - on June 27, 2005