Sunnyvale, CA based Infinera hasn’t had a sale yet. But the venture capitalists are betting on Infinera’s technology. Infinera’s technology can do the entire light-to-light conversion on two tiny indium phosphide (InP) chips, replacing the 50 or so parts currently used by most carriers, for less than half the cost. In other words, 10 channels of 10-Gbit/s traffic can be packed into these two tiny chips. And Infinera has built its own network system around the chips, sold in a box that takes up about one-tenth the space of a conventional system.

Carriers are keenly watching Infinera’s product evolution. Deploying Infinera’s product to build digital optical networks would allow carriers flexible access to new customers and markets, simplify operations, and reduce network costs.

Earlier this year, Infinera unveiled its transmit and receive photonic circuits, and gave an insight into the four-line-card optical transport system it was developing. “We began carrier field trials earlier this year and we’ve been very pleased with the high level of customer interest and enthusiasm,” says Jagdeep Singh, CEO of Infinera. He adds, “We want to take advantage of our momentum by expanding into new customer opportunities and by further strengthening our customer support capabilities.”

Infinera has raised $52 million, bringing total capital invested to $205 million.
The company plans to use the extra funds to support deployments with more telecommunications carriers worldwide.

Investors include corporate partners like Agilent, Applied Materials, Cypress Semiconductor, and Juniper Networks, as well as leading venture capital firms like Accel Partners, Benchmark Capital, JAFCO Ventures, Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, Mobius Venture Capital, Sprout Group, Sutter Hill Ventures, Venrock Associates, and Worldview Technology Partners. All these groups participated in this latest round.