ATLANTA — Two Israeli photonics companies announced plans to merge Monday (June 2) on the eve of the Supercomm show.
Civcom Inc. and XLight Photonics Inc., both based in Tel Aviv, will combine the free-space optical switches and variable optical attenuators of Civcom with tuneable transponders developed by XLight.
Civcom will take the lead in the merged company, with founder and chief executive David Mendlovic heading up the combined entity, which will likely be given a new name by the venture teams that back both companies. XLight chief technical officer, Dan Sadot, will service as CTO for the merged company.
Mike Myshrall, vice president of marketing and business development for Civcom's North American operations, said the companies have a combined head count in Israel and the U.S. will be just under 50. Civcom has U.S. operations in Reston, Va., but XLight only had a presence in the U.S. through distributors. Hence, Myshrall said he will handle the first direct representation of XLight transponders in North America.
Pitango Venture Capital and Concord Ventures, backers of both companies, pledged a new round of financing to the merged entity, though the amount of the equity package has not been discussed. Myshrall said the merger should be completed before the end of June.
For now, Civcom and Xlight will be combining the marketing of their separate product lines. Over the next few years, however, Myshrall predicted that Civcom and XLight technologies will be combined for new applications that combine protection and restoration switching.
"Our specialization was in ultra-fast optical switching, while XLight had ultra-fast tuneable 300-pin transponders," Myshrall said. "We see the potential for developing new products that would serve both protection and restoration applications for very fast network recovery."

Link: http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20030602S0100