Danish gratings company attracts funds

17 Jun 2002

The Danish manufacturer IBSEN Micro Structures A/S has secured 6.9 million Euro in its latest round of financing. The new funds will assist with the construction of the company's new R&D and manufacturing facilities, including more than 800 square meters of clean rooms.

IBSEN's chief operating officer, Steen Lohse, said that the company also plans to grow from 40 employees to more than 70 within the next six months. He added that new staff will mainly be added to R&D and Engineering.

"The company is entering a new era. We have derived a new concept for a superflexible optical add/drop multiplexer for DWDM systems, where our many years of experience with gratings come into play. This active component has a high level of integration and functionality that all network operators are looking for," said Lohse. IBSEN expects to show these products at the OFC exhibition in San Francisco, CA next year.

The investment comes from existing venture companies including Vertex Technology Fund, of Singapore; Strategic European Technologies, of the Netherlands and Germany; LMX Business Development, part of Denmark's KIRKBI Group; and Danish Venture Finance.

IBSEN was established in 1991 and has focused on the telecommunications market since 1996. The company produces holographic phase masks for replicating gratings into optical fibers. Its product portfolio consists of ITU grid filters, gain-flattening filters and Raman filters. IBSEN Micro Structures A/S also has the capability of manufacturing custom fiber Bragg gratings.

SH