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Cork photonics firm raises e9.6m
(Sunday Business Post Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)Cork firm Firecomms is targeting the multi-billion-euro consumer electronics market after raising e9.6 million in funding from three investors.
Declan OMahoney, chief executive of Firecomms, said the investment was a tipping point for the firm, which has been developing photonics technology since 2000.
We are moving from a research and development phase to a product phase, he said.
OMahoney said that Firecomms would expand rapidly, with employment set to rise from 16 to 24 people immediately.
The company is hiring researchers, engineering and marketing staff in Ireland and is also expanding its sales teams in the United States and Asia.
This is a pretty significant amount of money for an Irish company, he said. It will allow us to put the foot on the pedal and drive forward. The investment was led by ACT Venture Capital in Dublin, and included significant investment from Atlantic Bridge Ventures, which was formed last year.
Electronics component firm Alps Electric North America also invested in Firecomms, in its first deal outside the US.
Firecomms other shareholders include the companys founders and management and the Tyndall National Institute in Cork, from which it was spun out.
The companys technology is used to deliver data rapidly and cheaply over plastic fibre optic cable. That can allow data to move between consumer electronics devices located some distance apart, such as televisions, set-top boxes and DVD players.
Similar technology is already used to run electronics applications in high-end cars, including BMW, Porsche and Mercedes-Benz models. Firecomms last week launched products for home networking and the motor sector and is deeply engaged with customers, OMahoney said.
We are marrying the semiconductor world and the fibre optic world and putting the technology into consumer devices.
These are lasers that operate at one tenth of the power and up to 100 times faster than existing technology. We are the only manufacturer in the world in this position. OMahoney said that Firecomms had not had significant revenues to date, but he expected rapid growth this year and next year. The companys last accounts do not disclose revenue, but show it had an accumulated loss of almost e3.6 million at the end of 2004.
Firecomms had raised between e3.5 million and e4 million before this investment.
Most of the money came from Mentor Capital, which invested in Firecomms at an early stage and is now part of Atlantic Bridge Ventures.
OMahoney said the companys relationship with the Tyndall National Institute meant it had been able to develop its technology with relatively small investment, compared to its competitors.
We can access the technology base and punch above our weight, he said.
The company does not expect to raise more funding, but will always evaluate other opportunities, according to OMahoney.
This is sufficient [funding] to take us home. We have very, very fast growth planned and are building up with the structure for an IPO. There are always people expressing an interest [in buying Firecomms], but there is an opportunity here for an Irish company to grow quickly. The founders of Firecomms, John Lambkin and Thomas Moriarty, are chief technical officer and chief operating officer of the firm. Its directors include John OSullivan of ACT, Brian Long from Atlantic Bridge Ventures and Andrew Rickman, the founder of fibreoptics firm Bookham.
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