Gimv portfolio company CoreOptics sold to Cisco Gimv portfolio company CoreOptics sold to Cisco Gimv portfolio company CoreOptics sold to Cisco

Gimv portfolio company CoreOptics sold to Cisco

Portfolio

Gimv sells its stake in CoreOptics Inc. to Nasdaq-listed Cisco Systems Inc. (www.cisco.com), the worldwide leader in networking for the internet, which will completely acquire CoreOptics. This successful exit is one of the largest transactions for a venture-backed company in the electronics space in Germany in recent years. It further strengthens Gimv's position as one of the leading European Venture Capital market participants.

CoreOptics (www.coreoptics.com), with main operations in Nuremberg, Germany, and headquarters in San Jose, California, USA, employs 116 people. The company develops and manufactures subsystems for ultra high-speed optical networking applications in the
telecommunications and information technology industries. CoreOptics’ product portfolio includes advanced 10Gbps and 40Gbps transponders for metropolitan, regional and long haul optical systems using different protocols. The company was founded in January 2001 and received over USD 90 million of funding from leading international venture capital firms and strategic partners such as Gimv, TVM Capital, Crescendo Ventures, and T-Com Venture. Cisco’s acquisition validates both the outstanding quality of the team as well as its current products and pipeline.

Gimv has invested in CoreOptics since 2006 and participated in several financing rounds to become one of the main shareholders of the company. The sale has a positive impact of EUR 9.0 million (EUR 0.39 per share) on Gimv’s last published equity value at 31 March 2010. No further financial details on this transaction will be disclosed.