Verizon Ventures leads €4 Million Series A financing round in PICadvanced

Investment in optics and photonics solutions for NG-PON2 to provide strategic alignment to Verizon’s next-generation network

BASKING RIDGE, N.J., Aug. 05, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Verizon Ventures today announced it led a €4 million ($4.5 million) Series A financing round in PICadvanced (PICa), a developer of cost-effective optics and photonics solutions for telecom applications. Joining Verizon Ventures in the round is a 200M Co-investment Fund managed by PME Investimentos, which makes co-investments in high-growth Portuguese startups. 

Founded in 2014 and based in Ílhavo, Portugal, PICa has been active in the development of optoelectronic transceivers for a new telecommunications network standard called NG-PON2 (Next-Generation Passive Optical Network 2). Leveraging its expertise, the company aims to provide innovative solutions for the Passive Optical Network (PON) market. It has solved many complex problems through optics, from design and development to packaging and testing that are used in the electrotechnology, telecommunications, and biomedicine industries.

“PICa works to identify new optics solutions for many industries — like telecommunications,” said Antonio Teixeira, co-founder of PICa. “We’re excited to work with the team at Verizon Ventures to solve for next-generation optical access - and learn from the experts on Verizon’s network team.”

NG-PON2’s advantage is said to increase the capacity of the network and deliver more bandwidth at a lower cost per bit. PICa is also pioneering the design of Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs), which will significantly reduce the cost of producing optical modules and break most of the bottleneck created by conventional optic devices.

In 2018, Verizon announced it began testing NG-PON2 technology, the newest standard for Passive Optical Networks (fiber networks that don’t require active amplification due to signal loss). By working with PICa, Verizon will be able to deliver more bandwidth at a lower cost per bit, which could be used to support business services and wireless backhaul on the same fiber as residential services. The advantage PICa technology brings to NG-PON2 networks includes fast tunable lasers that enable up to four 10 Gbps bidirectional wavelength channels. Continued innovation of these technologies could lower the unit cost and enable the development of enhanced new products for 5G small cell deployments.