Canadian photonics company Enablence Technologies has secured C$25 million ($18 million) to increase optical chip production at its California facility and at a Vietnam plant operated with ShunYun Technology, a unit of Taiwan-based Foxconn.
The company said last Friday that the funding comes as demand for optical components rises alongside the growth of AI data centers. The proceeds will be used to expand manufacturing capacity at its Silicon Valley and Vietnam facilities and support working capital requirements.
Enablence raised the capital through a private placement with investment firm Collingwood Investments. The deal involved the sale of around 3.2 million shares at C$7.75 apiece, representing a 21% premium to the company’s recent market price and giving Collingwood a 13.3% stake.
Production in Vietnam is being carried out with ShunYun Technology, an optical-transceiver manufacturer owned by Foxconn and its ShunSin group. Enablence and ShunYun started volume manufacturing of optical components in Vietnam in August, following an assembly partnership established in March.
The partnership creates an end-to-end manufacturing network spanning chip design in Ottawa, wafer fabrication in California, and packaging and assembly in Vietnam. Enablence sees the setup as an alternative source of optical components for cloud and telecommunications customers in North America, particularly as US regulators consider potential restrictions on optical transceivers made in China.
The company’s planar lightwave circuit chips are silicon-based components that direct optical signals. They support high-speed 800-Gb and 1.6-Tb connections used in AI computing clusters, in addition to applications across telecommunications and automotive lidar.
Enablence CEO Todd Haugen said the fresh capital will help the company move faster with its expansion plans and reinforce its position in the photonics industry.
