FREMONT, Calif., Feb. 19 -- ANDevices, an optics company focusing on communications and biophotonics applications, announced today it has closed its first round of financing. The amount of the funding was not disclosed. AsiaTech Management is the lead investor, and several Silicon Valley "angel" investors participated. The company said the new funding will be used to develop communications components used in fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) and fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) applications and in biophotonics applications. "ANDevices has a solid technology base that can be applied to the established communications markets, as well as the emerging market for biophotonics," said Louie Liu, a partner at AsiaTech Management. "While the optical component market has been through a difficult period over the past few years, we see a lot of opportunity for ANDevices to drive innovation in the biophotonics field and to supply high-quality communications components to the telecommunications and datacom markets." ANDevices products in the communications field include low-loss and low-polarization-dependent loss (PDL) splitter modules and PLC- based, bidirectional optical subassemblies for the FTTH/FTTP markets; low-loss and low-crosstalk Mux/Demux products for dense wavelength division multiplexing and optical add/drop applications. Biophotonics-related products include "spectrometer on a chip" technology and other biosensors based on integrated optics principles. ANDevices also offers custom product and foundry services to research laboratories and universities. The company will exhibit its products at the 2004 annual Optical Fiber Communication Conference and Exposition (OFC), to be held Feb. 22-27 at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles. For more information, visit: www.andevices.com