Tibit completes $25M Series B funding

27 Aug 2019

New investment in optical transceiver developer led by Intel Capital plus new backers Swisscom and AJU IB.

Tibit Communications, a Petaluma, CA-based start-up developing next-generation access devices for passive optical networking (PON), has completed a Series B funding round, led by Intel Capital alongside two new investors – Swisscom Ventures and AJU IB Investment.

Tibit's MicroPlug OLT (Optical Line Terminal) solution is described by the company as “a revolutionary departure from legacy fiber access solutions, that are traditionally part of large, proprietary chassis with multiple internal switching layers.”

The device accommodates PON Layer 1 and 2 functionality within the space of a transceiver optics case that plugs into standards-based, commercially-available switches. This arrangement allows carriers a flexible and cost-effective deployment for fiber access, says Tibit.

The elimination of unnecessary management layers within the OLT equipment further enables PON management to be virtualized and moved into the carrier's cloud architecture.

'Disrupting the PON market'

"Tibit's MicroPlug OLT and cloud-based management solutions disrupt the PON market in specifically the areas that carriers are looking to unlock on their networks – interoperability, solution disaggregation, and network virtualization,” said Pär Lange of Swisscom Ventures. “We see their solution as uniquely positioned to help carriers enable next-generation architectures for access and management solutions."

Michael Jeon, an investment executive with AJU IB, added, "Tibit creates data center economics for the PON access market by making PON a simple Ethernet component and a catalog item for Ethernet switch suppliers for markets like Korea that are pioneering next-generation broadband speeds."

"We are pleased with the caliber of investors we have attracted to invest in our revolutionary pluggable PON technology," said Richard Stanfield, President and CEO of Tibit.

This includes the Series B participation of Tibit's existing investors, Intel Capital's lead role in this round, and now the entry of the investment arm of global telecommunications leader Swisscom Ventures and Korea's leading venture capital investor AJU IB Investment."

Dave Flanagan, VP of Intel Corp. and senior managing director of Intel Capital, said, "Tibit’s MicroPlug technology is a great example of the power of virtualization. It provides more flexibility, higher density and lower cost by deploying PON in general-purpose Ethernet switching equipment and management solutions, which can be entirely virtualized on Intel processor-based servers."