ColorChip raises an extra $17m, boosting latest financing round to $37m

Privately held optical transceiver firm ColorChip Ltd of Yokne’am, Israel has secured an additional $17m, boosting the total for its most recent round of financing to $37m (including the $20m raised last August). The latest financing was led by venture capital firm CIRTech fund, joined by Scale-Up fund.

Founded in 2001 by Dr Shimon Eckhouse and professor Shlomo Rushin of the School of Engineering at Tel Aviv University, ColorChip provides dense, hyper-scale high-speed optical transceivers for telecom/datacom markets as well as planar lightwave circuit (PLC) optical splitters for FTTx markets, after developing patented ‘SystemOnGlass’ hybrid optical integrated circuit technology.

SystemOnGlass comprises multi-lane waveguide-in-glass photonic integrated circuits (PICs) that include both active optoelectronic components (indium phosphide-based lasers and photo-detectors) and passive optical components (PLCs). The firm uses glass wafers to industrialize its optical devices, allowing for what is claimed to be cost-effective, rapid and highly scalable production, and bringing efficiencies commonly only seen in semiconductor fabrication to optical communications.

The new capital will be used to accelerate go-to-market initiatives, expand ColorChip’s manufacturing capabilities and fuel R&D. The firm hired 100 extra team members in the past 12 months, and during 2017 it will add 50 more to its operations and engineering groups as well as to R&D. Several products will be launched over the next two years.

“The space of web 2.0 and cloud providers is growing at an unprecedented rate, and ColorChip solutions and roadmap are in high demand,” says CEO Yigal Ezra. “The company is building capabilities to support mega data centers in the US and Asia, while developing next-generation 400G solutions,” he adds.

“ColorChip’s optical transceiver solutions have been recognized for exceptional efficiency and reliability and are being deployed and trusted by leading mega data centers worldwide,” comments Alex Lazovsky (managing partner at CIRTech Fund and Scale-Up), who has joined ColorChip’s board of directors.