Round A investment closed for Multiphoton Optics GmbH’s High-Precision 3D Lithography Platform

A consortium of investors has closed investment Round A for Multiphoton Optics GmbH’s High-Precision 3D Lithography Platform which closes the gap between classical 3D printing and optical lithography. Investors are Sack & Kiesselbach GmbH, High-Tech Gründerfonds GmbH, Bayern Kapital GmbH, the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft e.V. and a consortium of Business Angels with Dr. Ruth Houbertz, Dr. Moritz Esslinger, and Dr. Boris Neubert.

Multiphoton Optics GmbH sells standard and customized 3D Laser Lithography Equipment platforms. Its first commercially available equipment LithoProf3D was launched in February 2015. The LithoProf3D platform enables sophisticated, additive prototyping of novel product ideas in photonics packaging, photonics, or biomedical and life science products. Using Multiphoton Optics’ Application Lab, customers benefit from a scalable technology to test their technical product ideas without implementing a costly and time-consuming manufacturing of prototypes. Ruth Houbertz, CEO of Multiphoton Optics GmbH about the customer’s benefit of LithoProf3D: “Our flexible equipment and software platform solution enables our customers to speed up product development cycles drastically and more cost efficient. This is a significant competitive advantage, particularly in photonics and photonics packaging.”

In the prototyping phase, Multiphoton Optics supports its customers with its profound engineering know how, the development of prototyping processes, and process implementation support on customer’s sites. Dr. Georg Ried from Bayern Kapital states: “The technology of Multiphoton Optics addresses growing future markets and clearly offers a unique selling proposition compared to competitor’s technologies. Dr. Houbertz and her team are world-leading innovation drivers in these market segments. We are pleased to support Multiphoton Optics with our investment.” And Maximilian Frank from Fraunhofer Venture adds: “The excellent technological basis combined with the extraordinary performance of Multiphoton Optics‘ team with Dr. Ruth Houbertz as CEO and former employee of Fraunhofer ISC will significantly and sustainably impact the data transfer market.” Multiphoton gives its customers access to a powerful prototyping environment – easier than ever before.

Multiphoton Optics intuitive and flexible Software Package LithoSoft3D is an integral part of the LithoProf3D equipment Platform, and it is available for standard 3D structuring jobs and sophisticated work flows with se¬lectable exposure strategies – 3D printing from the sub-100 nm to the cm scale with highest precision. LithoSoft3D can be also employed without the equipment on customers’ sites, for example to test the prototy¬ping of aspheric or free-form microoptical elements or the fabrication of replication masters for the same. Par¬ticularly in photonics packaging, Multiphoton Optics’ technology platform provides a considerable pro¬cess simplification, providing scalable, low-cost processes. Driven by a continuously increasing demand on bandwidth and by a tremendously high energy demand, optical data transfer on short length scales be¬comes increasingly important. The integration of optical data links will significantly increase the energy effi¬ciency of data transfer systems. By Multiphoton Optics’ technology, the complete value chain is represented via energy and environmentally friendly processes – in the production and for the end product. Claus-Günther Knorr about the investment: “My grandfather Clemens Kiesselbach and his business partner Hugo Sack have founded Sack & Kiesselbach GmbH in 1891. We are always forwardly focused in our work and in our understanding of progress in its literal sense. Multiphoton Optics is a company which ideally fits our under¬standing of progress. We are happy to be an investor in Multiphoton Optics‘ Round A investment.“

Contact:
Multiphoton Optics GmbH
Dr. Ruth Houbertz
Friedrich-Bergius-Ring 15, 97076 Würzburg, Germany
Phone: +49 931 299958 90
ruth.houbertz@multiphoton.de
info@multiphoton.de
www.multiphoton.de

About Sack & Kiesselbach
Established in 1891 by Clemens Kiesselbach and his business partner Hugo Sack, Sack & Kiesselbach GmbH is a world-leading, highly experienced company in machine and plant construction for the production of high quality coins, medals, bars, and industrial pressed parts. Sack & Kiesselbach is a family-owned company based in Düsseldorf with 125 years of experience in machine and plant construction.

Contact:
Claus-Günther Knorr
Sack & Kiesselbach GmbH
Reichswaldallee 70, 40472 Düsseldorf, Germany
Phone: +49 211 90488 0
info@sack-kiesselbach.de
www.sack-kiesselbach.de

About Bayern Kapital / Seedfonds Bayern
Seedfonds Bayern has existed since 2003, using Clusterfonds Seed GmbH & Co KG’s new capital (€24M) since June 2010. The fund finances technology oriented start-up companies in Bavaria. It also serves as regional contact for founders seeking capital. It is managed by Bayern Kapital GmbH, which was set up in 1995 as part of the Bavarian state government’s “Bavarian Future Initiative”, aimed in particular at providing venture capital to newly-founded, innovative Bavarian companies. To date, Bayern Kapital has invested approx. €195M in more than 225 innovative, high-tech companies. Bayern Kapital currently manages an overall fund volume of about €200M.

Contact:
Bayern Kapital GmbH
Wolfgang Härtl
Ländgasse 135 a, 84028 Landshut, Germany
Phone: +49 871 92325-22
haertl@bayernkapital.de
www.bayernkapital.de

About Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft is the leading organization for applied research in Europe. Its research activities are conducted by 67 institutes and research units at locations throughout Germany. The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft employs a staff of more than 23,000, who work with an annual research budget totaling €2bn. Of this sum, more than €1.7bn is generated through contract research. More than 70 percent of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft’s contract research revenue is derived from contracts with industry and from publicly financed research projects.  International collaborations with excellent research partners and innovative companies around the world ensure direct access to regions of the greatest importance to present and future scientific progress and economic development.

About Fraunhofer Venture
Founded in 1999, Fraunhofer Venture sees itself as a partner for founders, start-ups, and Fraunhofer Institutes as well as for the industry and investors. By providing access to Fraunhofer technologies, infrastructure, and know how with more than 5,200 patent families, it offers start-ups from the Fraunhofer environment the possibility to faster and better establish their products on the market. The services include foundation, technology transfer, financing, and investment management.

Contact:
Fraunhofer Venture
Maximilian Frank
Hansastraße 27c, 80686 München, Germany
Phone +49 89 1205 4526
maximilian.frank@zv.fraunhofer.de
www.fraunhoferventure.de

About High-Tech Gründerfonds
High-Tech Gründerfonds invests in young, high potential high-tech start-ups. The seed financing provided is designed to enable start-ups to take an idea through prototyping and to market launch. Typically, High-Tech Gründerfonds invests EUR 600,000 in the seed stage, with the potential for up to a total of EUR 2 million per portfolio company in follow-on financing. Investors in this public/private partnership include the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, the KfW Banking Group, as well as strategic corporate investors including ALTANA, BASF, Bayer, B. Braun, Robert Bosch, CEWE, Daimler, Deutsche Post DHL, Deutsche Telekom, Evonik, media + more venture Beteiligungs GmbH & Co. KG, METRO, Qiagen, RWE Innogy, SAP, Tengelmann and Carl Zeiss. High-Tech Gründerfonds has about €576M under management in two funds (€272M HTGF I, €304M HTGF II).

Contact:
High-Tech Gründerfonds Management GmbH
Dr. Andreas Olmes
Schlegelstraße 2, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Phone: + 49 228 / 82 30 01-00
info@htgf.de
www.high-tech-gruenderfonds.de