Start-up Optimal Test recently completed a $14 million financing round from Pitango Venture Capital and Carmel Ventures. The round was particularly large compared with rounds by companies still being set up and raising money for the first time.
Optimal Test CEO Dan Glotter and Nir Erez founded the company a few months ago. Glotter was previously testing manager at Intel Israel’s Kiryat Gat. Erez was a partner in Eyron , and was founder and CEO of ActionBase, an Eyron spin-off.
Optimal Test plans to develop automation solutions for Fab processes, especially in the testing and control stages. Its products are intended for chip and semiconductor makers.
Erez told “Globes” that the reason Optimal Test raised such a large amount of money was the high cost of development and reaching the company’s intended markets. “Without expanding on the technology, development and market penetration costs in this industry are very high. This is a very significant and painful area for chip makers, who bear heavy testing costs. Our solution will cut these costs. The company is also the great hope in the technology field, and the hope of realizing this hope in terms of technology is expensive.”
Erez said he thought that Pitango and Carmel Ventures decided to make a large investment because of the promise of Optimal Test’s product.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on July 26, 2005