Earlier this week Rusnano, Russia’s nanotech giant with strong vested interests in overseas tech projects, bought into Compass-EOS, an Israeli start-up shipping a silicon photonics-based router.
Joining a large international investor consortium in Compass-EOS’ overall $42 million funding round, Rusnano contributed up $10 million, of which $3 million is expected to finance the setup of the developer’s future design center in Russia.
The Russian firm wants to ‘domesticate’ and further develop the Israeli company’s flagship technology, icPhotonics, on its home turf. icPhotonics is the world’s first shipping silicon-to-photonics interconnect. It helped Compass-EOS make its first headlines in the router industry nine months ago following the launch of its new r10004 hotspot.
This new electro-optical approach to data transfer is said to give rise to new router architectures, compact and innovative enough to require less power and provide more capacity.
“In an era where venture capital industry is busy gurgling over ephemeral social media platforms and me-too e-commerce apps, it is nice to hear about a company that has the gumption to try and to do something big, hairy and audacious, like build a brand-new class of routers to take on incumbents like Cisco Systems and Juniper Networks,” international tech publication Gigaom commented.
In this round of funding, Rusnano and another new investor, a yet-unspecified U.S.-based PE fund, partnered with Compass’ existing investors, including Comcast Ventures, Cisco, Pitango Venture Capital, Benchmark Capital and Northbridge Venture Partners and Marker.
Sources: Rusnano, Compass-EOS
