Lumentum completes acquisition of NeoPhotonics

 Lumentum completed its previously announced acquisition of NeoPhotonics.

"I am excited to unite NeoPhotonics' differentiated products and technology and talented team with those of Lumentum," said Alan Lowe, Lumentum President and CEO. "This acquisition better positions us for attractive growth opportunities created by the digital transformation of work and life, which is driving relentless growth in the needed volumes and performance of cloud and network infrastructure. I welcome our new colleagues to the Lumentum team and want to thank NeoPhotonics' CEO Tim Jenks and the rest of NeoPhotonics' leadership team for their contributions in getting us to this important milestone."

http://investor.lumentum.com

Lumentum to acquire NeoPhotonics for $918M amidst strong demand

Thursday, November 04, 2021  Lumentum, Neophotonics  

Lumentum agreed to acquire NeoPhotonics for $16.00 per share in cash, representing a total equity value of approximately $918 million and a premium of approximately 39% to NeoPhotonics' closing stock price on November 3, 2021.

The companies cited significant next-gen 400G+ opportunities as a leading driver for the merger.

NeoPhotonics, which was founded in 1996 and is based in San Jose, is a leading supplier of tunable lasers and optoelectronic components, including devices manufactured in its own Indium Phosphide fabs and combined with electronics using using Advanced Hybrid Photonic Integration techniques. The product portfolio includes coherent components and tunable lasers, coherent transceivers, wavelength management products, as well as fixed wavelength lasers and high speed driver ICs. The company has engineering and manufacturing facilities in Silicon Valley (USA), Japan and Shenzhen, China.

Lumentum said the acquisition strengthens its position in the more than $10 billion market for optical components used in cloud and telecom network infrastructure. 

"With NeoPhotonics, we're making another important investment in better serving our customers and expanding our photonics capabilities at a time when photonics are at the forefront of favorable long-term market trends," said Alan Lowe, Lumentum President and CEO. "At the center of our strategy is a relentless focus on developing a differentiated portfolio with the most innovative products and technology in our industry so that we can help our customers compete and win in their respective markets. Adding NeoPhotonics' differentiated products and technology and innovative R&D team is consistent with this strategy and together, we will better meet the growing need for next generation optical networking solutions."

"Today's announcement is an exciting milestone for NeoPhotonics," said Tim Jenks, NeoPhotonics President, CEO, and Chairman. "The increasing global demand for our ultra-pure light tunable lasers and photonics technologies for speed over distance applications is more apparent than ever, and Lumentum is the ideal partner to serve our customers on a larger scale. Lumentum recognizes the importance of NeoPhotonics' differentiated photonic technology and products, which are well positioned for accelerated growth in the coming years. "

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Ghost Security raises $15 million for protecting APIs

Ghost Security, a start-up based in Austin, Texas, emerged from stealth mode to announced $15 million in venture funding for its work in defending APIs.

Ghost is backed by 68 Capital, DNX Ventures, and Munich Re Ventures.

“As an industry, we are still seeing a lot of legacy thinking around how to deal with the application, data, and microservice sprawl that large scale cloud adoption has created,” said Greg Martin, Ghost Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer. “Existing approaches and application security solutions are now dated and losing effectiveness. At Ghost, we are completely rethinking the approach to securing modern applications from the ground up. We believe the explosive growth of microservices and APIs in the cloud will continue to outpace the capabilities of existing security solutions. We see this creating an even larger gap between the defensive capabilities of enterprise businesses and the capabilities of skilled hackers.”

“What’s exciting about the Ghost platform is that it removes the complex and invasive processes required to protect applications and APIs making this type of technology more accessible to organizations across the globe,” said Florian Leibert, General Partner and Co-founder at 468 Capital.

“The surge in adoption of applications, APIs, and microservices represents great growth potential for businesses but also introduces many new attack surfaces,” said Hiro Rio Maeda, Managing Partner at DNX Ventures. “A better approach to securing these assets is needed, and Ghost is well-positioned to address that challenge.”

https://ghost.security

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