Kotura Cooks Up $13M

Investors are showing support for Kotura Inc. with a $13 million funding round.

The money follows up $11 million garnered last year (see Kotura Integrates With $11M). But that round included a bridge loan that was already being eaten up. The $13 million is cash available to develop new products and ramp shipping of the company's UltraVOA, a variable optical attenuator array, says Jean-Louis Malinge, Kotura's CEO.

The latest round brings in new investors, GF Private Equity Group and the Viterbi Group, and is supplemented by prior investors Arch Venture Partners and ComVentures.

Kotura arose from the merger of Arroyo Optics and and Lightcross (see Arroyo, Lightcross to Merge). The company also licenses patents from Bookham Inc. (Nasdaq: BKHM; London: BHM), some of which apply to UltraVOA and others that relate to products in development, Malinge says (see Kotura Licenses Bookham Patents). Word has it Kotura is using the patents to get some wins as a second supplier to , Bookham's key customer, but Malinge wouldn't comment on that.

Kotura's vice president of marketing, Arlon Martin, previously held that title for tunable-laser firm Agility Communications Inc. -- and Agility, on the day after Kotura's announcement, struck a deal to get acquired by JDS Uniphase Corp. (Nasdaq: JDSU; Toronto: JDU).

Somewhere in there is a joke, which is left as an exercise for the reader. (See Kotura Hires Arlon Martin and JDSU Tunes In Agility.)

— Craig Matsumoto, Senior Editor, Light Reading