DustPhotonics narrows focus with $33M venture round

03 Nov 2021

Israeli startup to phase out transceiver product line and concentrate on silicon photonics under new CEO.

Stepping up: Ronnen Lovinger

DustPhotonics, an Israel-based startup focused on optical communications technology used in data centers and high-performance computing, is to reorganize and phase out its transceiver products following a new round of investment.

The Modiin company says it has just raised $33 million, with the round led by Greenfield Partners and earlier investor Intel Capital also taking part.

The company realignment will see DustPhotonics focus on silicon photonics, with co-founder Ben Rubovitch stepping down from the CEO role and replaced by company president Ronnen Lovinger.

Lovinger was previously VP of operations at Mellanox Technologies and COO at the lidar firm Innoviz Technologies before joining DustPhotonics a year ago. Rubovitch will remain with the company, to head up business operations.

InP-silicon integration
"This latest investment and the organizational changes will enable us to take advantage of new business opportunities and to continue focusing on serving our customers' strategic requirements,” said Lovinger in a release announcing the funding round.

“Our disruptive silicon photonics technology addresses their key and most challenging problems, creating scalable, cost-effective silicon photonics and driving it as the mainstream solution for the cloud and telecom markets.”

DustPhotonics says that its capability regarding the integration of indium phosphide laser diode emitters with silicon photonics will provide “significant value differentiation”, and higher performance for high-speed optical links of 800 Gb/s and more.

Yuda Doron, managing partner at investor Greenfield, said: “With the rapid evolution of the connectivity and silicon optics markets, there is a growing need for innovative technologies.

“DustPhotonics is well positioned at the forefront of silicon photonics technology development and we are excited to take part in their journey.”

Following its $25 million series B round in 2019, DustPhotonics had appeared focused on its “AuraDP” optical transceiver products, selling a range of hot-pluggable devices.

But those products will now be phased out, as the company switches focus to silicon photonics.