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ASIP merges with ThreeFive Photonics

Two leading developers of InP-based integrated optoelectronic components, the US company ASIP and ThreeFive Photonics of the Netherlands, have merged and at the same time received additional venture funding.
ASIP Inc and ThreeFive Photonics have announced the completion of a merger between the two companies, and have secured $7.5 million in venture capital funding.

ASIP, headquartered in Somerset, NJ, is developing products based on its Asymmetric TwinGuide (ATG) technology, a highly-scalable platform for monolithic photonic integration.

ThreeFive Photonics BV, a fabless developer and supplier of monolithically integrated InP-based optoelectronic chips based in the Netherlands, filed a “suspension of payments” request with a Dutch court in July 2003. This is the equivalent of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in the US. As a result of the merger with ASIP, the suspension of payments proceedings have been successfully concluded.

The combined company will be known as ASIP, Inc, with ThreeFive Photonics BV operating in the Netherlands as a wholly-owned subsidiary of ASIP.

Simultaneous with the merger, ThreeFive’s existing investors, Atlas Venture and Gilde IT Fund, have made a combined investment of $7.5 million in ASIP.

The new investment completes ASIP’s previously announced Series C round of financing , bringing the completed round to $23.5 million, with total funding to date at $31 million.

Atlas Venture and Gilde IT Fund joined existing ASIP investors Finaventures, Intel Capital, Multilink (a subsidiary of Vitesse), Nokia Venture Partners, and Redpoint Ventures. ASIP says that the Series C investments will fund its customer shipments, further the development of its manufacturing infrastructure and enable continued product innovation.

Through this merger, customers of ASIP will have access to an expanded product platform that includes critical optical building blocks such as distributed feedback lasers (DFBs), electroabsorption modulators (EAMs), high-speed photodetectors (PINs, APDs), semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs), and ultra-low-loss arrayed waveguides (AWGs).

ASIP will bring these optical building blocks together using its patented ATG platform to provide customers with the lowest cost, monolithically-integrated components for next generation fiber-optic networks of all kinds.

“The merger of ASIP with our portfolio company, ThreeFive Photonics, best positions the new company to become the world-class leader in photonic integration,” said Jeff Andrews, an investment principal at Atlas Venture. “As an investor in ThreeFive’s Series A financing, we have carefully followed ASIP’s progress in the market and concluded that their technology, products, and team were a great complement to that of ThreeFive Photonics. This investment by Atlas Venture reflects our belief in ASIP’s potential to be the industry’s leading pure-play photonic integration company.”

Mike Decelle will continue in his current role as president and CEO of ASIP. Wouter Deelman, formerly CEO of ThreeFive Photonics, will serve as ASIP’s general manager, Europe, and managing director of ThreeFive Photonics BV.

“This merger joins two of the industry’s most powerful innovators of optical integration technology,“, of ASIP. “ThreeFive is the acknowledged leader in the development of InP-based AWGs,” said Decelle. “Combining this experience with ASIP’s ATG platform will enable new classes of integrated devices that will dramatically reduce the cost of building next-generation fiberoptic systems.”

“The skills and experience of our two companies are a perfect match,” added Deelman. “ASIP has focused on selling world-class laser products to tier-one subsystems customers while we concentrated on highly-integrated, detector-based products that serve the leading OEM systems companies. Brought together, our new company will be well positioned to lead across a much broader set of product and market segments.”

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