Optical Network Group Mintera Raises Another $18. Million

LONDON — Optical networking group Mintera Corporation has completed a Series B round of financing that raised $18.5 million, the first investment since an original round in December 2000 raised $26.5 million.

Mintera (Lowell, MA.) focuses on 40Gbit/s transport sub-systems for metro, regional, long-haul and ultra long-haul networks. It will use the extra funds to continue product development and to expand sales.

The latest round was co-led by new investors Polaris Venture Partners and RRE Ventures. Existing investors including Court Square Ventures, Star Ventures and Portview Communications Partners also participated.

However Sycamore Networks, an earlier investor and with whom Mintera had an R&D contract form the beginning, did not participate in the Series B round.

As part of the fundraising, industry veterans Bob Metcalfe, General Partner of Polaris Ventures and founder of 3Com, where he 'invented' Ethernet, and RRE General Partner Rich McGinn, a former CEO at Lucent Technologies, are joining Mintera's board of directors.Mintera demonstrated its first ultra long-haul optical transport connection in June 2004 in a trial with MCI and Ciena Corporation. Recent successes include a live traffic trial on the Cernet network in China and a partnership with Mahi Networks aimed at integrating its transponder technology into Mahi's ROADM platform.

"The industry is experiencing a renewed interest in the economic benefits of 40 Gbit/s transport, as exemplified by recent activity in the carrier and enterprise segments," said McGinn. Mintera CEO Terry Unter commented: "Bandwidth-intensive multimedia applications continue to push the limits of existing networks. Mintera's proven solution offers an evolution to optical transport at higher bit rates without the need to upgrade or replace the fibers and optical amplifiers already installed for the older 2.5 and 10 Gbit/s systems."

While the company's system can work as a standalone 40G transmission system, Mintera is targeting its technology to carriers as a way to build overlay DWDM networks for existing 10Gbit/s links. These would use many of the same components, fiber, multiplexers and demuxes, optical amplifiers and dispersion compensators.

Unter said the company is continuing to work with research and development labs at carriers, systems suppliers, component manufacturers, research institutes and universities in an effort to drive down the costs of 40Gbit transmission.