DustPhotonics raises $33 million, pivots focus to silicon photonics

Israeli startup DustPhotonics announced on Thursday that it has raised $33 million amidst what it called a corporate reorganization, which included the hiring of a new CEO. It is believed that this reorganization also resulted in the firing of more than a third of the company's 80 employees.

The company, which was founded in 2017 and is based out of Modi'in, said it will focus its resources on silicon photonics solutions and phase out its transceivers product line. As part of this move, Ronnen Lovinger, president of DustPhotonics, has assumed the role of CEO. Ben Rubovitch, the company's previous CEO, has stepped down and will lead the business side of the company.

The funding was led by Greenfield Partners, who joined DustPhotonics' Round B investors Intel Capital, veteran entrepreneur Avigdor Willenz, and others.

"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 Ronnen Lovinger, CEO of DustPhotonics. "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. We are thrilled at the continued confidence of our investors in our strategic direction."

The development and production of silicon photonics solutions has increased in complexity in recent years, driven by exponentially growing data rates with every successive generation. DustPhotonics focuses on developing scalable, high density, lower power and higher reliability technologies to meet these needs.