Wave Photonics Secures £4.5M Seed Round: Week in Brief: 6/21/24

Wave Photonics, a developer of technologies for the adoption of integrated photonics, has secured a £4.5 million ($5.7 million) round led by the U.K. Innovation & Science Seed Fund and Cambridge Enterprise, taking the company’s total funding to date to £5.4 million. The round will be used for the development of on-chip photonics designs for quantum technologies, sensors, biosensing, and data center applications.

The Wave Photonics team. Courtesy of Wave Photonics.

ALBANY, N.Y. — NY CREATES, a non-profit focused on semiconductor-based research and development, and South Korea's National Nano Fab Center, a public organization for providing semiconductor technology services, have entered into a partnership that aims to develop a shared hub for enabling joint research, aligned technology services, testbed support, and an engineer exchange program to bolster chips-centered research and development and workforce development.

InfraTec’s newly constructed building extension. Courtesy of InfraTec.

DRESDEN, Germany — Thermal imaging and sensors developer InfraTec GmbH Infrarotsensorik und Messetechnik has finished construction of an extension building in Dresden, Germany. In addition to new offices, the extension includes production and development areas for thermography cameras and infrared detectors over a total area of 2700 sq m. The construction was backed by a €20 million ($21.4 million) investment by the Development Bank of Saxony.

CENTENNIAL, Colo. — NUBURU, Inc., a developer of industrial blue laser technology, plans to appeal the New York Stock Exchange's (NYSE) determination to delist its common stock to the Listings Qualifications Panel of the Exchange. NYSE Regulation is commencing delisting proceedings in connection with its determination that the company is no longer suitable for listing due to the bid price of its stock falling under $0.10. The company first received a deficiency letter from the NYSE in January.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Photonic smart coatings company SunDensity, Inc. has established a wholly-owned subsidiary, SunDensity Canada, through the acquisition of solar materials startup QD Solar, Inc. The asset acquisition agreement allows the organizations to explore a wider range of materials and processes for solar applications and will accelerate technology development, SunDensity said. QD Solar CEO Dan Shea, CTO Sjrd Hoogland, and COO and lead chemist Armin Fischer will transition to COO and general manager, CSO, and CIO and chief chemist, respectively. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Infinera, an open optical networking solutions provider, has completed a multi-vendor demonstration of 5G mobile broadband xHaul using coherent open extended reality (XR) optics point-to-multipoint optical transmission. The testing, conducted with DZS and Calnex, included fronthaul, midhaul, and backhaul transport scenarios with XR-based coherent pluggable optics deployed in third-party hosts, supporting point-to-point and point-to-multipoint optical transmission.

LAKE FOREST, Calif. — Dental lasers company BIOLASE, Inc. has received a notice from Nasdaq that it has determined to delist the shares of the company's common stock. The delisting is a result of failure to satisfy the $1.00 minimum bid price listing requirement and failure to comply with Nasdaq's $2,500,000 minimum stockholders' equity requirement. BIOLASE expects its common stock to commence trading on the OTC Markets Group platform this month and has applied to trade its common stock on the OTCQB Market.

FUJIFILM’s newly constructed Pyeongtaek City factory. Courtesy of FUJIFILM.

TOKYO — FUJIFILM Corporation has completed construction of a new factory in Pyeongtaek City, Korea. The factory, constructed by FUJIFILM Electronic Materials Korea, will produce the company’s COLOR MOSAIC color filter materials for image sensors along with other semiconductor materials to accelerate market introduction of new products. The factory is expected to be fully operational by the end of December.

NESS ZIONA, Israel — Developer of reflective waveguide technology for AR eyewear Lumus and provider of prescription lens solutions AddOptics have entered into a strategic partnership to directly bond waveguides with prescription lenses. Lumus' Z-Lens 2D reflective waveguide architecture will be integrated into AddOptics' prescription lenses enabling users to see virtual content without the use of heavy inserts. AddOptics combines a positive diopter lens with an equal but opposite negative diopter lens to create a combined lens system with no net optical power to bring the virtual image into view without altering the wearer's view of the physical world.

Avegant’s LCoS AG-30L2 light engine (left) and Vuzix’s wave guide glasses. Courtesy of Vuzix.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Vuzix Corporation, a supplier of smart glasses, has entered into a partnership with Avegant, a developer of light engine technology, to develop optimized waveguide optical modules for use in future AI-enabled smart glasses. This partnership's objective is to integrate Avegant's compact LCoS AG-30L2 30-degree light engine with a customized version of Vuzix' full-color incognito-enabled waveguide to create an AR display module that is intended to be used as an optical reference design for AI-enabled fashion-forward consumer smart glasses. The first prototypes of this collaboration will be showcased privately at Augmented World Expo USA 2024 and is planned to be fully unveiled at Consumer Electronics Show 2025.