The venture finance folks have been saying that money for start-ups is tight, and especially hard for brand new ventures. So it's heartening to hear about companies getting any kind of funding in a time like this. Maybe the financing hasn't thawed, but it's not completely frozen either.
If you dig around, the stories are there. In April, Powerlase got a chunk of money for its business in lasers. In March, One-Chip Photonics received nearly $20 million that was promised to them for meeting a milestone in photonic integrated circuits. In January, nLight got about $11 million for its business in lasers and laser components. In December, Pixim received $13 million in funding for its business in image sensors for security cameras. In November, Raydiance got $20 million for its work in ultrafast lasers. The biomedical sector continues to do particularly well. Recently three bio-optics startups received a total of $38 million in financing: AOptix Technologies, BiOptix Diagnostics, and LensX Lasers (putting an x in your company name is evidently the new fashion). And there are more.
The companies are quick to boast that they are still a good investment, but there is always more to the story, to be sure. For one thing, companies don't disclose the terms of the deals. And some have asked me, if they are doing so well, why do they need the money?
But the investors are putting what money they have into the companies they believe in the most. That's worth noticing.
By the way, if you want to read some interesting comments from a VC's perspective, see Larry Marshall's VC View blog at the Laser Focus World web site. For example, here's "What VC's actually do in a down market."
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