Optical communications co ColorChip raises $20m

Yigal Ezra Photo: PR
Yigal Ezra Photo: PR

The Israeli company's technology meets the growing need to help datacom manage all of the exponentially growing traffic.

Israeli optical communications company ColorChip has raised $20 million from Gemini Israel Funds, BRM Group, IGP, Vintage, HGL Capital, and Viola Credit. Founded in 2001 by Dr. Shimon Eckhouse and Prof. Shlomo Rushin of Tel Aviv University School of Engineering, the Yokneam based company has raised $80 million to date including the latest financing round and its previous financing round of $25 million in November 2015. IGP, Gemini and BRM led previous financing rounds.

ColorChip is a privately held Israeli company that provides cost effective, dense, hyper-scale transceivers and advanced optical splitters. The funding will enable the Israeli company to ramp-up operations and accelerate product development.

With Internet services becoming more data intensive due to streaming HD video, virtual reality, cloud computing, and IoT devices, there is a growing need for new technologies to help datacom manage all of the exponentially growing traffic. ColorChip’s innovative optical communication solutions are well positioned to help solve the growing bandwidth demand of the web.

ColorChip CEO Yigal Ezra said, “We have so much support and confidence from our investors and are going to utilize the funds to recruit additional employees as well as scale up our operations to better serve the growing demands of the Datacom market.”

ColorChip has developed unique SystemOnGlass technology a hybrid optical integrated circuit. ColorChip uses glass wafers to industrialize its optical devices, allowing for cost effective, rapid, and highly scalable production. In essence, this allows the company to bring efficiencies commonly only seen in semiconductor fabrication to the world of optical communications.

ColorChip is also unique in the Israeli landscape, since it not only develops its solutions but is also vertically integrated and manufactures its core technology in its wholly owned and operated state of the art fab in Israel. The fab utilizes the company's unique IP and is a critical component of its core technology, positioning the company as a leader in the industrialized manufacture of optical assemblies. The company is targeting the high speed transceiver 40G/100G Datacom market, predicted to reach $1.7 billion by 2019.

ColorChip is in the process of scaling up its operations, including hiring new employees in Israel, the US, and remote site facilities. The new funding will directly support these efforts.

Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on August 17, 2016

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2016

Yigal Ezra Photo: PR
Yigal Ezra Photo: PR
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