Luna Innovations buys General Photonics for $20 million

Luna Innovations Inc. (NASDAQ: LUNA) says it has purchased General Photonics Corp. for $20 million, a figure that includes a potential $1 million earnout payment. Chino, CA-based, privately held General Photonics provides components, modules, and test equipment for the generation, measurement, and control of polarized light. Luna expects the acquisition to enhance its existing test and measurement product line.

The integration of General Photonics’ products into Luna’s Lightwave Division will help the company expand its footprint within its target customer base, Luna explains. Luna had already incorporated some of General Photonics’ products into its test instruments, and the acquisition should further promote vertical integration.

“We are excited to announce the acquisition of General Photonics, another step in the execution of our core strategy. This acquisition brings a highly complementary product portfolio to the capabilities of Luna’s communications test products,” said Scott Graeff, president and CEO of Luna. “We intend to drive a quick and smooth integration as both company’s products are built on similar electronics, optics and software platforms for high-precision measurement and control of light. This deal further demonstrates our commitment to use capital prudently for transactions that are quickly accretive to our earnings, and it is consistent with our previously stated goal to drive long-term value.”

At OFC 2019 this week in San Diego, General Photonics unveiled the OFA-1000 (Dynamic Optical Frequency Analyzer– ChirpWise™), which the new Luna acquisition asserts is the first instrument focused on measurement of rapid optical frequency variations. The OFA-1000 characterizes the dynamic properties of tunable lasers, especially swept-frequency (or swept-wavelength) lasers in support of such applications as chirped LIDAR for autonomous vehicles, optical coherence tomography (OCT) for industrial and medical optical imaging, optical frequency domain reflectometry (OFDR) for distributed sensing, and tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy (TDLAS). In the press release for this product, General Photonics said had become a division of Luna Innovations.

This is Luna's second acquistion in less than a year. The company bought Micron Optics last October (see "Luna Innovations buys Micron Optics").

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