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For Immediate Release

Media Contact:
Amy Foschetti
Interprose PR
Phone: + 1 (703) 917-0972
[email protected]

NanoOpto Secures Additional $7M in Venture Financing

B-Round funding to be used for product development and commercialization

Somerset, New Jersey. September 9, 2003. NanoOpto Corp., which is applying proprietary nano-fabrication technology to the rapid design and high volume manufacture of nano-optic devices for optical systems and networks, announced today that it has closed on an additional $7 million, completing its Series “B” round of venture financing. This new round of financing comes from existing equity partners Morgenthaler Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) Gotham Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ) New England Ventures, U.S. Trust’s Excelsior Venture Partners III, L.L.C., and the Harris & Harris Group. The additional $7 million, which brings the total financing raised to date to $27 million, will enable NanoOpto to continue technology and product commercialization and advance into the revenue stage.

“NanoOpto is both pleased and excited to have the support of some of the best regarded venture capital investors in the world,” says Barry Weinbaum, President and CEO of NanoOpto. “These investors recognize our enormous potential, the disruptive nature of our technology, and the breadth of market applications we can address. We plan to use this new round of investment to build on the exciting customer traction already created through the introduction of new products and to ramp our operations.”

With this new round of financing, Chip Meakem of Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham Ventures and Todd Hixon of Draper Fisher Jurvetson New England join NanoOpto’s Board of Directors. They join existing Board Members Ed Zschau (Chairman), Barry Weinbaum (President and CEO), Greg Blonder (Morgenthaler Ventures), Howard Lee, and Phil Anthony.

NanoOpto is creating novel classes of optical components by manipulating light with nano-scale structures to provide increased functionality, easier integration, lower total cost, and higher volume capabilities in comparison to traditional optical devices. NanoOpto has commercialized this unique technology through their proprietary optical component designs and internally developed manufacturing methods for a broad range of markets, including optical data transfer, telecommunications, sensors, and displays.

About NanoOpto
NanoOpto Corp. is applying proprietary nano-fabrication technology to the rapid design and high volume manufacture of nano-optic devices for optical systems and networks. The company’s subwavelength scale nano-optic design capability combined with nano-scale manufacturing technologies delivers optical components that allow more rapid prototyping, higher performance, and lower overall system cost. Both independently and with industry partners, NanoOpto uses its technology to produce superior versions of standard optical components and new classes of integrated optical subassemblies for both custom and general applications. The company has received financial backing from leading venture capitalists and is based in Somerset, New Jersey.

About Morgenthaler Ventures
Morgenthaler, a leading venture capital and buyout firm, was founded in 1968. The firm focuses on early-stage technology investments as well as middle-market management buyouts. It has funded over 180 companies in its 33-year history, including two of the last decade’s highest performing IPOs: Microchip Technology (1993) and Premisys Communications (1995). Current representative portfolio investments include component and semiconductor companies such as Xponent, Cortina Systems, and Peregrine Semiconductor, as well as systems companies such as Catena Networks and Caspian Networks. With its $850-million fund raised in early 2001, the firm has a total of just under $2.0 billion under management.

About Bessemer Venture Partners
Bessemer Venture Partners, with offices in California, Massachusetts, and New York, is the leading national, early-stage venture capital firm in communications technology and internet infrastructure. The firm manages more than a billion dollars of venture funds, carrying on a tradition of hands-on, active venture investing that has continued since 1911. Many leading-edge communications companies, including Cascade, Ciena, Parametric, QED, Sirocco, Sonus Networks, and VeriSign selected BVP as their early-stage venture partner.

About Draper Fisher Jurvetson New England
Based in Cambridge, MA, DFJ New England is an early-stage venture capital firm, providing expert counsel and financing to emerging companies that display the promise of significant growth and value creation. DFJ New England is the New England affiliate of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a top-tier Silicon Valley venture fund known for visionary early-stage investment. DFJ New England invests in information technology companies, with emphasis on enterprise software and the building block technologies for computing and communications. It brings to bear both the long experience of its principals and the extensive resources of the DFJ network to help portfolio companies make key decisions and secure customers, partners, executives, and later round financing.

About Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham Ventures
Draper Fisher Jurvetson Gotham Ventures is an early-stage information technology venture capital firm with approximately $100 million of capital under management, focused on investment opportunities in New York and the surrounding regions. The fund is managed by Ross H. Goldstein and Daniel J. Schultz and Charles Meakem and is an affiliate fund of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a leading venture capital firm in Silicon Valley.

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