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The company, which develops tunable laser products for the telecommunications industry, currently employs 20, but Chief Executive Officer John Dunne told ElectricNews.Net that this number will be bumped up to between 35 and 40 over the next 18 to 24 months. Early recruits will be on the sales side of the company, he said, as the firm prepares to launch its products on a more wide-scale basis.
Specifically Intune's products will allow large telecom equipment vendors to develop next-generation core switching systems and more efficient transport networks. Its two main products are the SENTOR, a tunable laser characterisation system, and the INT1100, a tunable laser module.
The business expansion comes on the back of a new multi-million euro funding round that was led by ICC Venture Capital and included existing and new investors.
The firm claims that as data and other packet-based traffic increases by up to 200 percent a year, its products will be in higher demand. However Dunne admitted that attracting the new funding was more difficult than in its earlier round, which was completed in January 2001 for around EUR2.8 million. "This time around we found that investors were looking for lots of due diligence," Dunne said, pointing out that solid sales and a long customer list were important components in the minds of investors.
He went on to say that the new round of investment was a "clear endorsement" of the firm's business model and technology and that the company was generating "a reasonable return on investment in the context of a challenging global economic climate."
Intune's existing investors also include the Irish development agency Enterprise Ireland, 3i and a number of private investors. This round of funding was co-ordinated by Merrion Corporate Finance.
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