Venture capitalCompass-EOS closes $42 million funding round

Israeli company Compass-EOS, which describes itself as “the icPhotonics routing pioneer,” last week announced the closing of a $42 million round of financing that includes participation of existing investors Comcast Ventures, Cisco, Pitango Venture Capital, Benchmark Capital, Northbridge Venture Partners, and Marker LLC, with a U.S.-based Private Equity Fund and RUSNANO joining the round as new investors.

Compass-EOS launched its r10004 router in March 2013, announcing the commercial shipment of its icPhotonics-based routers, based on shipping photonic chip-to-chip interconnect. Global service providers including NTT Communications and research and education organizations including CERNET have successfully deployed the company’s routers.

“Compass-EOS has an enormous market opportunity with the rapid growth of data services and online devices,” said Gadi Bahat, CEO of Compass-EOS. “Our initial success with global network service providers has enabled Compass-EOS to raise considerable capital from leading investors around the world. We will continue to innovate while investing in customer support, sales and marketing, all of which are key elements for our future.”

The company also disclosed it will re-align its workforce. Commenting on the re-alignment, Bahat said: “The strong vote of confidence from our investors and our refined company strategy further position Compass-EOS for global growth and success.”

icPhotonics, the Compass-EOS technology, is the world’s first shipping silicon-to-photonics interconnect, a technology considered as having disruptive potential in networking and computing. The photonics-based interconnect creates novel router architectures requiring less power, and taking up less space while providing a higher port density and capacity. In addition to the lower maintenance cost, the technology enables building-block deployment of routing resources, similar to the revolution of virtualized data centers.