Peter Bordui, former chairman of Bookham (now Oclaro) and a veteran of the fiber optics telco industry, has joined the board of directors at BeamExpress SA as its chairman, the company announced. BeamExpress also has completed a $3 million funding round led by Polytech Ventures along with existing investor i-Source Gestion. “There is an important and growing need for telco laser sources that offer lower power consumption and lower heat generation, particularly in market segments like 40 Gb/s optical links and point-to-point FTTH,” said i-Source Gestion venture capital firm partner Nicolas Landrin. “We believe that the VCSEL [vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser] technology of BeamExpress will provide a commercially viable solution to avoid the problems inherent in conventional edge-emitting lasers.” Privately held BeamExpress, in cooperation with EPFL (Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne), develops advanced long-wavelength VCSELs for high-speed optical communications applications. For more information, visit: www.beamexpress.com