Rockley Photonics Closes Series A Funding Round Following 'Unprecedented' Interest

Rockley Photonics, a UK-based start-up focused on advanced silicon photonics for next generation data communication networks, has announced it has closed its Series A funding round following high levels of investor interest.

The funds secured will be used for a number of product development and growth initiatives, including the expansion of the company's engineering team in Pasadena, California.

Silicon photonics technology is used to integrate various optical functions on a silicon chip in much the same way that traditional semiconductor chip technology integrates various electrical functions on a silicon chip.

This technology has the potential to efficiently increase bandwidth capacity in data communication networks to enable faster and more efficient cloud services and internet applications. These benefits will help the internet continue to scale efficiently in both speed and power requirements in the face of rapidly growing data consumption demands from both business and individual consumers.

Rockley Photonics was founded by an experienced management team with success in commercialising silicon photonics. Chairman and CEO, Dr Andrew Rickman, previously founded Bookham Technology in the UK and more recently acted as Chairman of Kotura Inc.

Investor groups achieved more than a ten times return from Bookham Technology's Nasdaq IPO and four times from Kotura Inc's trade sale.

Dr Rickman commented: "I have been closely involved with silicon photonics for 23 years and Rockley Photonics represents the commercialisation of silicon photonics technology in its most exciting form yet. There is strong demand in the market for the speed and integration capabilities that silicon photonics can provide and we aim to apply our experience to enable accelerated adoption of higher bandwidth networks for a faster and more productive internet experience."

For more details visit www.rockleyphotonics.com

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Notes to Editors:

For more information please contact:

Alyson Marlow
Leepeckgroup
T: 02380 63 22 11
E: alyson.marlow@leepeckgroup.com

About Rockley Photonics:

Rockley Photonics was founded in September 2013 and has offices in Oxford, UK and Pasadena, California, USA. The company is establishing a fabless silicon photonics (the optical analogy of silicon microelectronics) model and infrastructure and currently has an exclusive partnership with a leading technology institute and is working with exemplary university research teams in supportive collaboration roles.