Gore Sells Fiber-Optics Biz
No, not that Gore. W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc., a supplier of components for the electronic industry, says it is selling its fiber-optic business. (more)

Venture Capital News

Hatteras Networks Gains $45M More in New Funding
Hatteras Networks, a developer of last-mile carrier access platforms, today announced the closing of an additional $45 million in venture capital funding. Led by Grotech Capital Group and fully supported by existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Columbia Capital, and ComVentures, the new round raises the companys total capital investment to date to more than $73 million.

The company intends to use the money to fund carrier product trials and the ongoing development and sales of its Access Class Ethernet platform. Hatteras Access Class Ethernet technology enables carriers to deploy high-capacity Ethernet data services over either their existing fiber or copper infrastructure while maintaining and evolving existing T1 and TDM services. Using Access Class Ethernet, carriers can now deliver scalable, high-speed data services to 100 percent of their potential business customer base, company officials said. In addition, carriers can leverage Access Class Ethernet to streamline and simplify network deployments and ongoing operational management.

Intense Photonics Raises $16.4M
Intense Photonics, a Scotland-based developer of integrated optical components, said it has closed a #10.5 million ($16.4 million) series B funding round. Cazenove Private Equity leads the round with a syndicate containing first round investors, 3i and ACT Venture Capital, together with two further European venture capital funds (FNI Venture Capital and TTP Ventures).

Intense Photonics will use the funds to accelerate the development of its product range and strengthen its marketing effort. Intense Photonics has a fully operational fabrication facility and produces multi-function optical chips. Intense said it uses a proprietary development and manufacturing technique known as Quantum Well Intermixing (QWI). QWI allows multiple optical functions such as lasers and amplifiers to be fabricated on a chip in a single processing stage.

Wave7 Optics Catches a $15.5M Wave
Wave7 Optics, an Alpharetta, Ga.-based developer of optical access equipment for the fiber-to-the-home and business (FTTX) market, today announced that is has raised a third round of funding totaling $15.5 million, bringing the companys total funds raised to $47.5 million.

Oak Investment Partners led the Series C round, while all prior investors, Morgenthaler Ventures, Advanced Technology Ventures, Lucent Venture Partners, Mellon Ventures, and Armada Venture Partners also participated in the round.

Wave7 Optics has successfully developed and deployed a high-bandwidth, dynamically provisionable, optical access system to address the "last mile" of broadband Internet connectivity. Wave7's suite of optical access products, the Last Mile LinkTM, serves residential, business and MDU subscribers with unprecedented bandwidth flexibility to provide the triple play of video, voice, and data. The Last Mile Link architecture is standards-based, cost-competitive with current HFC implementations, and includes industry-leading Quality-of-Service (QoS) and security mechanisms for enhanced features. The solution overcomes the high fiber counts, limited distance range and high equipment costs of competing FTTX solutions, such as passive optical networks (PONs).

Other News

Level 3 To Hook Up Pan-Euro Research Community
Level 3 Communications, Inc. said it has been selected by DANTE (Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe), the government backed pan-European research community network operator, to provide communications services between London and New York.

The 2.5Gbit wavelength terminates at a Level 3 data center in New York and will connect the European research networks with those in the U.S. This will enable both academic groups to send and receive information using the Global Terrabit Research Network, which is a partnership to establish a true worldwide next-generation Internet to interconnect national and multinational high-speed research and education networks.