Wave7 Optics Inc., 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 company's 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. Additionally, Dave Walrod, general partner of Oak Investment Partners, will join the Wave7 board of directors.
Wave7 Optics has 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 Link, serves residential, business and MDU subscribers with the bandwidth flexibility to provide the triple play of video, voice, and data.
"We are very excited to bring Oak Investment Partners into the Wave7 Optics team, and the continued participation of our existing partners at Morgenthaler, Advanced Technology Ventures, Lucent Venture Partners, Mellon Ventures, and Armada Venture Partners is a very solid endorsement of our technical approach and progress with customers," says Thomas Tighe, Wave7 chief executive officer and president. "This new round of funding will enable Wave7 to expand the market base of its recently introduced Last Mile Link suite of optical access products and scale production accordingly."
The Last Mile Link architecture is standards-based, cost-competitive with current HFC implementations, and includes what the company claims is 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).
"Wave7's architecture allows home, business, and MDU users to finally realize the full advantages of optical access," contends Dave Walrod, general partner, Oak Investment Partners. "We've observed the success the company has achieved in their product development and customer acceptance of their products and are delighted to be part of this emerging leader in optical access."
Wave7 Optics' Last Mile Link advanced optical access system provides video (CATV and digital, including IP streaming), high-speed data and telephony services (IP-based or circuit-based) to subscribers with dedicated and on-demand symmetrical data rates of up to 500 Mb/sec/subscriber, using standards-based Gigabit Ethernet on single fiber.
"FTTX used to be thought of as the technology of the future," notes Robert (Robin) Bellas, general partner at Morgenthaler Ventures and one of Wave7's founding investors. "But Wave7's experienced and talented management team recognized the opportunity, and shaped the FTTX system specifications to meet emerging customer needs. The opportunity is now, and Wave7 is beginning to see the impact in the marketplace."
For more information about Wave7 Optics Inc. (Alpharetta, GA), visit the company's Web site at www.wave7optics.com.