Albuquerque, NM – September 12, 2014 The New Mexico Angels, a local private investor organization, announced that it has funded two New Mexico start-up companies: Dynamic Photonics and Seed Worthy. Dynamic Photonics was formed around technology developed at the University of New Mexico in 2013. The technology, which received gap funding from STC’s Gap Fund @ UNM program, is an ultra-fast optical receiver that increases the speed of data exchange at a 40+giga-bit-per-second rate and was developed by Dr. Payman Zarkesh-Ha and Dr. Majeed Hayat from the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. The Angel investment will allow the company to conduct further testing before launching product. To read more, see Kevin Robinson-Avila’s Sept. 11, 2014 article, “Angels Fund Two New NM Startups,” from the Albuquerque Journal, reprinted below.
Angels Fund Two New NM Startups
Copyright © 2014 Albuquerque Journal
The New Mexico Angels closed this week on $180,000 in funding for two new Albuquerque-based startups.
That includes $30,000 for Dynamic Photonics, which plans to market University of New Mexico technology to greatly speed fiber optic communications, and $150,000 for another company to commercialize a plug-and-play website system that will allow software development firms to rapidly get their businesses up and running online.
The Angels formed Dynamic Photonics in 2013 as part of their Startup Factory, a holding company they set up to incubate firms that commercialize UNM technology.
Dynamic Photonics has taken an option to license a new circuitry process for fiber optics that will allow receivers to transmit signals at speeds four or five times faster than standard transceivers currently on the market.
“There are a ton of 10 gigahertz devices today, but not a lot of 40 or 50 gigahertz receivers,” said Dynamic Photonics President and CEO Robert Efroymson. “This technology can make the receivers much faster.”
The company so far has tested its technology in the lab. The new Angel investment will further prove the process before launching commercially.
“The goal is to get closer to proof of concept and then start shipping around the results,” Efroymson said. “We’ll build a solid demonstration and then either sell the technology to manufacturers, or raise more money to build an actual prototype.”
Such business decisions on marketing strategy will be made after full test results are in, said Angels President John Chavez.
The other $150,000 investment marks the first close on a $500,000 raise by Seed Worthy, which has built a platform that software developers and creators can use to quickly and easily launch as a fully operating online business, said company co-founder Scott Maloney.
“It’s a plug-and-play system for immediate customer interaction,” Maloney said. “The funding will help us prepare for commercial launch, which will happen sometime in the fall.”
The system is being beta tested now while the company continues to raise funds, Chavez said.
“It’s compelling technology with a very scalable business model,” Chavez said. “It’s a fully integrated business-to-business development tool that will allow software firms to get everything established on the web in like an hour, as opposed to the typical 30 days it might take today.”
Source: Albuquerque Journal
For more information, contact:
Kevin Robinson-Avila
krobinson-avila@abqjournal.com