Folio Photonics Raises $8 Million in Seed Funding Round

Folio Photonics, Inc., developing a standard in optical solutions for storage, closed an $8 million seed funding round led by Refinery Ventures (after a venture round of $4.2 million in 2017).

Pavey Investments and Capital One Partners also participated in the round.

The investment will be used to further drive partner engagements, beta customer acquisition, product development and general corporate growth.

Digital data is growing at a stunning pace, leaving companies with an enormous storage problem. In the last 10 years, worldwide data has increased from 0.9ZB to 33ZB, and is predicted to hit 175ZB by 2025 (1), presenting companies with a difficult decision – delete or add capacity.

Deleting data isn’t a viable solution, as data is essential in driving innovation and competitive advantage. Additionally, companies are tasked with keeping data longer due to regulatory retention requirements, and advancements in analytic tools demand larger data sets. In today’s environment, companies require a solution that not only stores data for long periods of time, but can do so economically.

“We founded Folio Photonics to address a rapidly growing problem – archival storage,” said Kenneth D. Singer, PhD, the company’s founder and chief innovation officer.

Steven Santamaria, CEO, said: “Data is one of the most valuable and competitive assets companies retain, and existing solutions such as HDDs and magnetic tape cannot economically meet the demands of today’s data-driven environment. Companies need a high-capacity solution that provides quick access to data at a low-cost. We have a deep understanding of today’s data requirements and have developed a solution to meet customer needs.”

Properties of incumbent archival media

Mismatch of HDD cost decline to rapid growth of archival data

(Adapted from: P. Gupta et al., “An Economic Perspective of Disk vs. Flash Media”

Click to enlarge

Annual storage costs (optical vs. tape)
Click to enlarge

Unlike existing archival storage solutions, Folio Photonics’ terabyte-scale multilayer DataFilm Disc delivers a long shelf-life, small environmental footprint and low TCO.

The product emerged from Singer and his collaborators’ laboratories at Case Western Reserve University’s National Science Foundation Center for Layered Polymeric Systems in Cleveland, OH.

The invention involves the design of a multilayer film capable of being written with existing Blu-ray laser technology and produced in a scalable roll-to-roll process. The initial disc offering will have a capacity near 1TB/side with plans to deliver 10TB per disc. Based on the long life, high capacity, and product road map, te company anticipates driving the cost of archival storage below the competition.

As part of this announcement, Tim Schigel, managing partner, Refinery Ventures, and Joe Taylor, former chairman and CEO of Panasonic Corp. of North America, have joined firm’ board of directors. Taylor’s experience in transforming Panasonic Corp.’s business from consumer electronics products to B2B solutions, combined with Schigel’s knowledge of growth companies bring strengths to Folio Photonics.

“I meet with hundreds of companies a year, and the minute I met with Steve and Ken, I knew there was something different,” Schigel said. “It’s rare to find not only a new technology that is a true disruption to an existing industry, but an executive team that understands how to build, grow and scale a disruptive company. I’m confident Folio Photonics will change the archival storage industry, bringing a powerful, economic option to a growing problem.”

“I’ve never seen anything close to Folio Photonics’ ability to drive down archival storage costs,” Taylor said. “And I’m thrilled to be part of the journey.“

(1) IDC, The Digitization of the World From Edge to Core by David Reinsel, John Gantz and John Rydning, November 2018

More regarding Folio Photonics annual archival acquisition projections, see A Roadmap for Cost Containment in Data Archiving.

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Start-Up Folio Photonics Develops 1TB Multilayer Optical Disc
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