Acquisition of Local Start-up Founded by UCSB Alum

Juniper Networks has signed an agreement to purchase Santa Barbara-based Aurrion, a local start-up founded by a UC Santa Barbara alum.

Sindhu writes, “Today, I’m pleased to share that Juniper Networks has entered into an agreement to acquire Aurrion, a disruptive innovator in silicon-photonics technology.”  He continues, “We expect that Aurrion’s breakthrough technology will result in fundamental and permanent improvements in cost per bit-per-second, power per bit-per-second, bandwidth density, and flexibility of networking systems.”

This is a big praise for Aurrion which was spun out of UC Santa Barbara and founded in 2008 by electrical and computer engineering graduate Alexander Fang. He received his PhD from UC Santa Barbara that same year and worked as student of Professor John Bowers, a faculty member of the engineering and materials departments, and affiliate of the Technology Management Program.

“I’m excited about Juniper Networks’ acquisition of Aurrion. UCSB has created a unique ecosystem that enables the commercialization of ground breaking research,” Fang expressed. “The research labs that allow access to industry (in particular the Nano-fab), the various Angel Investors and Entrepreneurial mentors within our community, and the local Young Presidents Organization (YPO) chapter were all essential in the value creation that ultimately led to this acquisition.”

Fang further commented, “We’re excited about our continued role in the Santa Barbara community in the next stage of our journey with Juniper Networks.”

According to several industry sources, the acquisition of Aurrion is a welcoming disrupter innovation for Juniper Networks in that it solves their business needs by combining quality optical solutions – that is high-density, high-speed – in a more cost-effective manner, as well as pushing it out to the market more quickly.