Oraxion Measures Up To $8M

Oraxion Diagnostics raised an $8 million Series B round led by Mohr, Davidow Ventures (MDV) and which includes first-round investor IdeaLab. With the second round, Pasadena, Calif.-based Oraxion has raised $10 million to date.

Oraxion, founded by five CalTech and MIT professors in 2002, produces metrology, or measurement, systems for the semiconductor industry.

MDV General Partner Rob Chaplinsky, who leads investments in semiconductors, says that the Series B funding could carry Oraxion to break even since the startup is already generating revenue from product sales to public semiconductor companies. Chaplinsky says that Oraxion can also sell its systems to foundries or to other semiconductor equipment manufacturers, which need to test their systems.

While there are no known private VC-backed competitors making the kind of optical measurement systems Oraxion is producing, the company competes against large test equipment manufacturers, such as KLA Tencor Corp., Applied Materials and Vecco Instruments.

Lee Smith, CEO of Oraxion, was an early participant in another VC-backed metrology company, Therma-Wave.

MDV, probably best known for its funding of industry semiconductor success stories Rambus, FormFactor and Numerical (which was sold to Synopsis) continues to build its semiconductor portfolio under Chaplinsky’s guidance to include test-equipment, electronic design software and fabless startups.