AnaFocus Raises 2.5 million Euro Round for Corporate Expansion and Further Developing International Business
ANAFOCUS Posted 07/30/2010
ANAFOCUS, a company specializing in the development of intelligent CMOS image sensors, has successfully achieved new funding totaling 2.5 million Euros. The new investment will be applied to the acquisition and setup of clean-room facilities for sensor mass-production, the development of a family of off-the-shelf intelligent CMOS image sensors, for machine vision and the expansion of the team and installations in ANAFOCUS’ offices in Spain and Japan.
The funding has been accomplished by Fondo Jeremie Andalucia, a private equity and mezzanine fund managed by the Agency for Innovation and Development of Andalucia. Bullnet Capital, the Spanish venture capital firm that led the Series A round, remains an investor in the company.
“ANAFOCUS competes in a market sector with a strong growth potential. Besides that ANAFOCUS has a clear and differentiated value proposition compared to the standard offer of image sensors” says Stefan Mathesius, Director of Fondo Jeremie Andalucia. “Despite its limited initial financial resources, ANAFOCUS' founding team members succeeded in developing a world-class engineering team and created and consolidated an impressive portfolio of customers, consisting of top-tier camera and system vendors worldwide. The achievements in Japan are especially commendable; a quality-focused and highly-demanding market where ANAFOCUS has an important number of consolidated customer accounts, many of them loyal customers, engaging in business with the firm on multiple occasions in a short period of time. The history encouraged us to believe that ANAFOCUS has the potential to become a market leader and thus Fondo Jeremie Andalucia has taken the decision to become a strategic investor, in order to support the current and future development of the company.”
“From its foundation, ANAFOCUS has always pursued technological excellence in all of its developments. Such a focus has allowed us to create and consolidate a considerable portfolio of IP around key aspects of CMOS image sensor technology, including pixel-level image storage and processing, HDR sensing, ultra-low noise, ultra-high speed sensor readout, distributed processing architectures for real-time optical correction and novel architectures for sensor auto-reconfiguration and self-programming.” says Rafael Romay, General Manager of ANAFOCUS. “Our unique technology in addition to the methodology we use for the development of complex systems on-chip (SoC) image sensor, and the knowledge and professionalism of our team are the key factors that persuade our past and current customers. Despite being a relatively new company, we are proud to say, that some of the most prominent Equipment camera Manufacturers worldwide, are choosing ANAFOCUS as a partner for the development of new and innovative sensor devices that are powering their leading products”.
About ANAFOCUS
ANAFOCUS is a pure-play supplier of standard off-the-shelf and application-specific CMOS image sensors with built-in intelligence for the industrial, scientific and professional surveillance market. ANAFOCUS started its operation in 2004 with the financing support of Bullnet Capital SCR. It is based in Technological Park CARTUJA’93 in Seville (SPAIN) where occupies a total surface of 1,000m2 one fourth dedicated to technical installations including optical test labs, qualification labs and clean-room facilities for wafer-level test and final test. ANAFOCUS and has a team of around 50 engineers and technicians with expertise in CMOS image sensor development, test, and mass-production, camera hardware-software, and image-processing applications.
About Fondo Jeremie Andalucia
Fondo Jeremie Andalucia, is a private equity and mezzanine fund resulting from the cooperation between Junta de Andalucía, the European Commission, and the European Regional Development Fund in the JEREMIE (Joint European Resources for Micro to Medium Enterprises) initiative.
The strategy of Fondo Jeremie Andalucia is identifying companies with large growth potential and clear competitive advantages and financially supporting then as to make them global leaders in their respective marketplaces.
About Bullnet Capital SCR
Bullnet Capital is a Spanish investment firm specialized in technological projects managing funds of circa 50mm €. Bullnet Capital focuses in companies that develop unique technology (software and/or hardware) in the Information Systems area, with applications in several industries: telecommunications, media, health-care, industrial.
