Creandum co-leads investment of 10.25 MUSD with Sunstone Capital in Danish company IPtronics A/S.

2008-02-19

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (February 19, 2008) - IPtronics A/S, a leading supplier of silicon for parallel optical applications closed more than USD 10M (DKK 52.5M) in series B funding. Creandum and Sunstone Capital co-lead the investment round. Contributing to the investment was also the current investor, 10IPT10, as well as members of the management team. The investment will be used to accelerate global sales and product development.

IPtronics has established itself as a leading supplier of integrated circuits to the emerging market for parallel optical interconnects, a market forecasted to replace electrical high speed connections in next generation computer systems and storage networks.

Founded in 2003 by a group of former Giga A/S and Intel Corp. managers, IPtronics has developed a chip technology that enables low cost, low power and small size optical interconnect solutions that computer manufactures will adopt in next generation systems to overcome the physical constraints from using copper-based connections over high speed interfaces and backplanes.

"We have known many of the people behind IPtronics since the Giga / Intel days and we are convinced that this team has what it takes to build a truly global company. Parallel optical interconnect is a market at the verge of the point of inflection and IPtronics is well positioned to become a market leader," says Jimmy Fussing Nielsen, Managing Partner, Sunstone Capital Technology Ventures.

"We are impressed with the achievements of IPtronics. The company has already significant revenue growth and is engaged with leading customers in both US and Japan. As manufacturers of computer systems, storage networks and mobile phones increasingly are looking at lower power consumption while increasing connectivity capacity, IPtronics has a very interesting position as the leading supplier in this field" says Martin Hauge, General Partner, Creandum.

"Power consumption is the paramount challenge for mass deployment of optical interconnects in next generation computer systems and IPtronics holds the key technology to enable this market." says IPtronics CEO Niels Finseth, who continues "I am excited that we are now able to further accelerate growth by expanding our capabilities and organization to take full advantage of the market opportunity."

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Martin Hauge, General Partner, Creandum Email: martin.hauge@creandum.com, Mobile: +46 70 757 77 36.
Niels Finseth, Founder and CEO, IPtronics E-mail: niels.finseth@iptronics.com, Direct: +45 27 11 68 50

About Creandum

Creandum is a Nordic venture capital firm investing in early-stage technology companies. The firm has 120 million Euros under management and is today the fastest growing independent partnership of its kind in the Nordic region. Creandum invests in innovative companies in high growth markets led by outstanding entrepreneurs. All investment professionals at Creandum has started companies or been part of successful startups. Creandum has as one of its corner investors the 6th Swedish National Pension Fund and is among other major international investors supported by the European Communities Growth and Employment Initiative, MAP - ETF Start-up Facility. For more information, please visit www.creandum.com.

About IPtronics

IPtronics is a fabless semiconductor company offering next generation integrated circuits for Parallel Optical Interconnects. IPtronics is already supplying a 4-channel product to leading customers in the industry, a chipset that lowers the power consumption of optical interconnections by a factor of four. Furthermore, IPtronics will be sampling a new low power 12-channel chip set during 2008. The company operates from its headquarters in Roskilde, Denmark and has recently established US operations through IPtronics Inc. based in Palo Alto, CA. For more information, please visit www.iptronics.com.