Cheaper and Better Solutions of
Optical Engines and Transceivers
Optella, Inc., a Soon-To-Be ‘Hidden Champion’
believes that entrepreneurs are those who have a firm belief in their own ideas and hypotheses and prove them to be true.
Based on Lee’s 25-year-long R&D experience in optical communication at ETRI,
Optella will emerge as a competitive player in the optical communication industries in the United States and China.
Well-established technology and a promising take-off
Optella, Inc. is as a spin-off startup founded with the technology contributed by ETRI, with the ambition to become a stellar business in the industry of optical communication. By utilizing low-cost optical coupling technology owned by ETRI, Optella has made a meteoric rise in the optical communication industry to produce low-cost, low-power optical transceivers and VCSEL-based multichannel optical engines.
After leading the development of low-cost optical coupling technology as a research project leader at ETRI, Dr. Sangsoo Lee founded the company to directly commercialize the technology, which has significant competitiveness to reduce both price and power consumption by one-third compared to the existing similar products.
In December 2014, Optella was selected as a “global venture star” in the competition hosted by the SK Creative Economy and Innovation Center in Daejeon. The company received a prize of USD 8,000 and participated in the investment briefing session and related training program at Innopartners, a US-based startup incubating center. When the company’s technology was introduced in a report prepared by a market research agency, it came into the limelight within six months from its foundation, a one-of-its-kind achievement in Korea.
In Korea, the company chose its base in Gwangju’s R&D district to connect with and tap into the technological prowess in Daedeok Techno Valley and the optical industry infrastructure in Gwangju. While concentrating on R&D activities, the company is pursuing collaborative research with talented researchers currently working in the industry. Since the tech district in Gwangju houses ETRI’s Honam Research Center, Korea Photonics Technology Institute, and other professional research institutions in the optical industry, the location provides significant advantages for the product development process encompassing testing, certification, and pilot production. Optella has its domestic branch in Gwangju, also because it believes that the region offers a business-friendly environment where supporting institutions including the Korea Association for Photonics Industry Development and related industries. Daedeok Techno Valley and the Creative Economy and Innovation Center in Daejeon have provided full support from Optella’s inception based on the belief in the company’s ability to manufacture products with the world’s top technological skills.
Goals of achieving USD 100 million sales and NASDAQ listing by 2020
CEO Sangsoo Lee says that he keeps asking himself about the singular unique characteristics of Optella whenever he introduces the company’s technology and products to customers and investors in the United States. “The most urgent task now is to seek a development direction by strategically integrating the technologies we have and to identify the latest trends in overseas markets,” says Dr. Lee.
The CEO was chosen as a manager of “the world’s leading research project” in 2012 by the Korea Research Council for Industrial Science and Technology and was awarded the Outstanding Researcher Award in 2013. Dr. Lee also advanced the technology to provide 100 times faster and safer high-speed Internet service by using exclusive optical waves. In addition, he achieved a range of notable outcomes in the optical industry over two decades. One example is guaranteeing access speed of 10Gbps for each subscriber and thereby reducing the time required for downloading a film from six minutes and 40 seconds to only four seconds.
These accomplishments enabled Dr. Lee to keenly understand the industry’s current status and find the technology and access strategy suitable for the American and Chinese markets. His career work led to expanding the company’s core technology and connecting fibers between different types of equipment. It is never easy to realize an idea and technology into products. Optella is endeavoring to prove that it has sufficient capacity to rise to a new sphere in the optical communication industry.
Optella set a goal of achieving sales of USD 100 million and be listed on NADSAQ with a firm value of USD 200 million by 2020. CEO Lee affirms that the company “is following its dream,” revealing his ambition to enable Optella to contribute to human progress and spearhead technology as the industry’s leader. It appears that Optella, an emerging player in the optical communication market, will soon become a champion in the industry before long.
