Enablence Technologies has closed a C$25 million strategic investment from Collingwood Investments, giving the optical chip company additional capital to expand manufacturing capacity as demand grows across AI, data center and telecommunications markets.
Collingwood purchased 3.226 million Enablence common shares at C$7.75 per share through a private placement, generating approximately C$25 million in gross proceeds.
Enablence plans to use the capital for planned expenditures that expand capacity at its fabrication facilities in Silicon Valley and Vietnam, along with working capital to support increasing sales volumes and general corporate purposes.
The Ottawa-based company develops planar lightwave circuit optical chips and subsystems used across datacom, telecom, AI and advanced vision applications.
Its products are primarily silicon-based PLC chips, with its current customer base increasingly concentrated around data centers and other high-growth markets. Enablence technology also has potential applications in automotive LiDAR, medical devices, virtual reality and augmented reality systems.
In selected situations, Enablence also uses its proprietary non-captive fabrication facility in Fremont, California, to manufacture chips designed by third-party customers.
That manufacturing footprint gives the company exposure to increasing investment in optical connectivity as AI data centers require higher-bandwidth links between computing systems.
As part of the financing, Enablence entered into an investor rights agreement giving Collingwood pro rata pre-emptive rights on future equity issuances along with certain top-up rights.
Paradigm Capital served as exclusive financial adviser to Enablence and will receive a cash advisory fee equal to 5% of the gross proceeds. Bennett Jones served as legal counsel.
