AOI Raises $10 Million in Second Funding Round
Sugar Land, TX. Applied Optoelectronics Inc. (AOI), a manufacturer of lasers for telecommunications systems, announced today that it has completed a second round of private equity financing, raising approximately $10 million. The company designs and manufactures long-wavelength (1550-nanometer) vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs).
Technology Associates Management Co. (TAMC), a Plano, Texas-based venture capital group, led this funding round. Opnet Partners, based in New York, also participated. AOI raised $7.2 million in a first offering last year, bringing the company s total equity investment to date to $17 million.
"This is a tremendous vote of confidence in AOI and our VCSEL technology by our investors," said Thompson Lin, company president and CEO. "With this infusion of capital, we will be able to accelerate the development and manufacture of new long-wavelength laser products."
AOI is developing a quartet of products based on its long wavelength VCSEL technology: single VCSELs, VCSEL arrays, tunable VCSELs, and VCSEL elements for external cavity tunable lasers. The company has already begun shipment of the latter product.
"This company has the right mix of technical talent and business acumen," said Chris Ching, senior investment manager at TAMC. "Their three-year history of profitability in the semiconductor laser business combined with their extensive patent portfolio and top-quality engineering and management team makes this a truly unique investment opportunity."
"By leveraging our extensive experience in molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) of advanced semiconductor laser structures, we have created a product that is squarely targeted at the metropolitan area network, with link distances of 80 kilometers or less. The products we are currently shipping and have in development will enable a new cost-equation for our customers, enabling the proliferation of long-wavelength optics into the metro market," explained Lin.
The company initially began shipping prototype quantities of 1550-nanometer single-mode VCSELs in late November of last year. Initial customer acceptance has been rapid, and the company is expanding its production capacity to meet the demand.
"When emerging applications such as optical switching and MPLS come into widespread use, our products will find even greater application. Patent-pending technology developed at AOI will allow the lowest cost per wavelength of any solution currently envisioned in the intermediate reach transmitter market," added Stefan Murry, director of marketing at AOI.
"AOI s progress to date in the efficient use of resources to achieve product development and manufacturing capability and expertise is most impressive," said Richard Black, one of OpNet s general partners. "We believe AOI will be a strong player in the rapidly growing telecommunications market."
About AOI Applied Optoelectronics Inc. (AOI) is a next-generation vertically integrated optoelectronics company that designs, grows, processes and packages advanced vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs) for the telecommunications market. The company is headquartered in Sugar Land, Texas, south of Houston. For further info: www.ao-inc.com
Contact: Applied Optoelectronics Inc., Sugar Land Sheldon Smart Tel: 281/295-1807 smart@ao-inc.com
Applied Optoelectronics Inc., Sugar LandSheldon Smart
Tel: 281/295-1807
smart@ao-inc.com
E-mail: smart@ao-inc.com
Web site: http://www.ao-inc.com
