News: Optoelectronics
29 January 2021
Rockley closes additional $65m to accelerate growth
Rockley Photonics of Oxford, UK and Pasadena, CA, USA has closed an additional $65m round of growth capital from both new private funds and follow-on existing investor Morningside Ventures. To date, Rockley has raised over $290m of financing to develop its unique silicon photonics platform from recent investors such as Credit Suisse backed SIG-I Capital and Applied Ventures LLC (the venture capital arm of Applied Materials Inc).
Rockley was formed in 2013 by a management team that has previously had success with two silicon photonics companies. Founder & CEO Andrew Rickman founded the first firm to commercialize silicon photonics, Bookham Technology (which had an IPO in 2000, became Oclaro in 2009 and is now a part of Lumentum), and later became chairman of Kotura (sold to Mellanox in 2013). Rockley has developed a versatile, third-generation application-specific silicon photonics platform designed for optical integration in next-generation sensor systems and communications networks.
“There is tremendous need for technologies that can enable effective digital health and wellness, driven by the associated benefit provided to population health,” says Rickman. “This funding provides the resources for Rockley to dramatically accelerate its product offerings, particularly our integrated optical sensors products. We are committed to our tier-1 customers and our ability to help expand their product offerings and the innovative data-driven business models these products will enable,” he adds.
“We are very pleased to support Rockley at this juncture of the company’s development and contribute to the commercial success of their integrated optical chipsets and related products in multiple markets,” comments Morningside Group investment manager Mick Sawka. “Silicon photonics is at a tipping point, and the technical attributes of Rockley’s platform, coupled with the strong product roadmap and established high-volume production ecosystem, uniquely positions the company for growth in exciting verticals of interest including healthcare and communications,” he believes.
Rockley was recently named as an early constituent in the Lazard T100 Venture Growth Index (T100), a developing collection of selected companies demonstrating the potential to disrupt multi-billion-dollar sectors and shaping the European venture growth ecosystem.
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