Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Oak helps carve out a $10M tranche for nLight

By Galen Moore

Oak Investment Partners LP continues its focus on nLight Photonics Corp., a Vancouver, Wash.-based maker of high-power semiconductor lasers.

The company reported it has received a $10.7 million tranche of equity financing from Connecticut-based Oak and fellow return investors Mohr Davidow Ventures and Menlo Ventures.

CEO Scott Keeney said nLight finished 2008 with “record bookings.” He said the company looks optimistically on its chances as the industry consolidates and uses of its product expand.

In a report on venture exit activity in 2008 released recently by Dow Jones VentureSource, the top New England M&A dealmaker was Oak, with 10 mergers and acquisitions on the books.

According to VentureSource, seven of the 106 New England-backed M&A exits were asset acquisitions in which a company’s assets are portioned out to buyers. Two of those belonged to Oak-backed companies: Utah-based Linux supercomputing company Linux Networx and Los Angeles e-commerce retailer eStyle.