The company Connector Optics has launched a plant to produce epitaxial wafers for high-speed optic components in St. Petersburg, innovation and venture news source UNOVA reports.

The project investors are Rusnano and the financial corporation URALSIB.

The epitaxial wafers production technology was created by the team of graduates of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, in cooperation with the German company VI Systems GmbH.

Total investment into the project came in at $34.6m, including Rusnano’s contribution of $24.3m. It is expected that by 2015 Connector Optic’s product will take over about 5% of the world market, and expected revenue will total $75.6m.

Epitaxial wafers are used in various optic electronic and microwave devices, such as laser diodes, including vertical-ray lasers, photodiodes, microwave transistors and diodes.

“The main advantage of optic components, produced by the company, is the data transfer speed. Construction and technology of production of vertical-ray lasers enable data transfer speed to reach 40 Gbyte per second, exceeding existing analogues by 2.5 times. As of today, the company has no competitors on the price to transfer speed per channel ration, that is why in the nearest future we expect to take a significant share on the Russian and global markets,” Konstantin Demetriu, Rusnano’s managing director said.

“High technology venture projects based on domestic inventions are very rare on the Russian market. The project Connector Optics can take a strong position in the sector,” Aleksander Rakhlevsky, the head of the Direct Investment Fund of the Financial Corporation Uralsib, said.