SiOnyx raises $12.5 million in series B financing

BEVERLY, USA: SiOnyx Inc., a leading innovator in high-performance photonics, today announced that it has successfully completed its series B financing, closing at $12.5 million.

New investors Coherent Inc., Crosslink Capital and Vulcan Capital joined existing investors Polaris Venture Partners and Harris & Harris to complete the round. There are no resulting changes to SiOnyx's board of directors.

"The addition of a strategic partner and two top-tier venture capital firms to our series B syndicate underscores the tremendous economic potential of SiOnyx's innovation," said Stephen Saylor, CEO of SiOnyx. "Our early success in delivering record-breaking performance in applications from simple light detection to thin-film photovoltaics has fueled our momentum. With this new funding, SiOnyx will launch our first commercial products and expand the suite of solutions offered to our strategic partners."

SiOnyx is commercializing a fundamentally new semiconductor processing technique that represents a breakthrough in the development of smaller, cheaper, high-performing silicon photonic devices. The company recently demonstrated record-breaking photosensitivity in collaboration with the Army Research Office (ARO) and is currently working with a number of industry and government partners to advance the use of its technology.

"Coherent's investment in SiOnyx, one of our strategic partners, reflects our confidence in the company and its technology to help us capture new opportunities in the photovoltaic industry as it continues to expand towards grid parity," said John Ambroseo, Coherent president and CEO.

Vulcan Capital, the venture investment firm founded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, is impressed by SiOnyx's novel technology platform. Venture partner Jill Watz added, "We expect the disruptive nature of SiOnyx's technology to create entirely new product categories and deliver powerful performance enhancements to the multi-billion dollar market for silicon photonics."

Based on a novel laser implant method first discovered at Harvard and commonly referred to as 'Black Silicon,' SiOnyx's patented semiconductor process dramatically enhances the performance of light-sensing devices across a range of applications in the consumer, industrial, medical and defense industries.