Richard Visser, Smart Photonics
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Smart Photonics has raised another €6 million, mainly from informal investors. “Besides this new investment, the majority of our existing informal investors converted their loans into shares with a value of € 4,5 million, which strengthens our financial position even more”, CFO Robert Feelders says. “This expresses great confidence in our potential and growth. With this new funding, we will be able to improve both the stability and robustness of our processes, that will lay a firm foundation in making the next step towards a full production plant.”

Feelders and CEO Richard Visser want to reach that goal step by step, from their present headquarters at the High Tech Campus Eindhoven. This way, Smart Photonics wants to finally bring the photonic chips to the market. Visser: “Developing technology is one thing, but in the end, you have to be able to actually make and sell it.”

Raising money is still a big challenge, Visser says. “High Tech companies always have trouble raising money. And especially when it comes to developing a technology that is not yet understood by everyone. Our challenges are extremely big. We need to enthuse people, convince them that something really special is happening here and that we need money to develop it. We have so far been very successful in raising funds to finance our growth. The customers are particularly important in this respect. Fortunately, we are not lacking in interest from the market. Large companies are paying attention to what we do and especially what we can do.”

Photo: Richard Visser