July 7, 2011 — poLight AS, reflowable autofocus actuated cameraphone lenses maker, closed its Series B financing round with NOK100 million (USD 18.5 million), led by Norway’s Investinor. Existing shareholders Viking Venture III AS, Alliance Venture Polaris AS and SINTEF Venture III AS also funded the round.
poLight is tapping into a viable market — improving consumers’ cameraphones — while leveraging the established semiconductor supply chain for manufacturing, said Christian Dupont, CEO of poLight, asserting that investors recognize this lucrative combination.
Viking Venture cites poLight’s progress since its series A investment (2009): bringing in Dupont and a management team, sampling the lens technology with major cameraphone makers, and developing partnerships with leading micro electromechanical systems (MEMS) suppliers. poLight has been featured by analysts for its use of ferroelectric thin films in MEMS.
poLight’s round B of financing could be extended to NOK130M (USD 24.5 million) in the second part of the year with additional investors joining the consortium.
poLight’s tunable lens (TLens) offers auto focus (AF) actuators based on the company’s optical polymer technology. The construction halves the camera module’s power consumption.
The device can focus instantly for videos and photos. The lens can be used in devices as high-quality as 12 mega-pixel.
poLight develops micro-optics components with wafer-scale polymer layers. It was spun out of Ignis ASA. For more information, visit www.polight.com.
Investinor wis funded by the Norwegian government to invest in highly competitive and promising Norwegian companies aiming for international growth and/or expansion. For more information, visit www.investinor.no.
Viking Venture is a technology-focused venture fund in Norway. Viking Venture invests in companies that have passed the seed phase and are ready for commercialization.
Alliance Venture is a venture capital firm investing in privately held, early stage technology companies.
SINTEF is a large contract R&D institute in Europe. SINTEF’s subsidiary Sinvent AS manages the IPR and venture portfolio of SINTEF.