About Us
Founded by Pioneers in Silicon Photonics
Kal Shastri
CEO
Kal Shastri Founder and CEO is a veteran technologist and entrepreneur.
Kal has a proven track record of identifying critical bottlenecks in compute & communication
industries and building companies to solve them in a timely fashion.
Kal founded AANetcom - the first company to design & commercialize multi-channel CMOS SerDes (acquired by PMC-Sierra).
Kal founded Lightwire - the first company to commercialize Si photonics (acquired by Cisco) based products meeting industry standards.
Kal began his career at AT&T Bell Labs and holds more than 60 U.S. patents. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Columbia University, and a Masters from IIT-Kanpur.
Kal founded AANetcom - the first company to design & commercialize multi-channel CMOS SerDes (acquired by PMC-Sierra).
Kal founded Lightwire - the first company to commercialize Si photonics (acquired by Cisco) based products meeting industry standards.
Kal began his career at AT&T Bell Labs and holds more than 60 U.S. patents. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Columbia University, and a Masters from IIT-Kanpur.
Andy Zhou
VP of Operations
An accomplished optical industry executive with over 30 years of experience leading innovation,
operations, and business growth in photonics and telecommunications.
Currently serving as VP of Operations at Aayuna, Inc., overseeing strategic and operational
initiatives for an emerging startup.
Previously served as VP and Head of Passive Optical Products at Corning, where leadership
included the integration and management of the Alliance Fiber Optics Products (AFOP) business
group following its acquisition.
At AFOP, built the passive optics division from the ground up, growing it to nearly half of the company's $60M annual revenue. Earlier founded and led Optoplex Corporation, scaling the organization from two employees to a global operation with 80 staff, multiple patents, and major customers worldwide. Holds a Ph.D. in Optical Sciences from the University of Arizona, an MBA in Marketing and Finance from Lehigh University, and has been granted over 30 patents in optical technologies.
At AFOP, built the passive optics division from the ground up, growing it to nearly half of the company's $60M annual revenue. Earlier founded and led Optoplex Corporation, scaling the organization from two employees to a global operation with 80 staff, multiple patents, and major customers worldwide. Holds a Ph.D. in Optical Sciences from the University of Arizona, an MBA in Marketing and Finance from Lehigh University, and has been granted over 30 patents in optical technologies.
Sriram Tyagarajan
VP of Engineering
Sriram brings more than 30 years of experience leading large, geographically distributed
engineering teams in the development of data center, telecom, and storage systems spanning
hardware, ASICs, firmware, and software.
As Senior Director at eSilicon and PMC-Sierra, Sriram led the delivery of multiple innovative silicon and system solutions for Fortune 500 data center, server, and storage customers, with end-to-end ownership across the entire product lifecycle - from architecture and development through qualification and production.
Earlier in his career, Sriram was a member of Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs Design Automation team, where he partnered with Fortune 500 customers to evangelize formal verification methodologies and tools, serving as both a development and applications engineer.
Sriram holds a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering and a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical and Electronics Engineering.
As Senior Director at eSilicon and PMC-Sierra, Sriram led the delivery of multiple innovative silicon and system solutions for Fortune 500 data center, server, and storage customers, with end-to-end ownership across the entire product lifecycle - from architecture and development through qualification and production.
Earlier in his career, Sriram was a member of Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs Design Automation team, where he partnered with Fortune 500 customers to evangelize formal verification methodologies and tools, serving as both a development and applications engineer.
Sriram holds a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering and a Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical and Electronics Engineering.
Kal Shastri
Kal Shastri Founder and CEO is a veteran technologist and entrepreneur.
Kal has a proven track record of identifying critical bottlenecks in compute & communication
industries and building companies to solve them in a timely fashion.
Kal founded AANetcom - the first company to design & commercialize multi-channel CMOS SerDes (acquired by PMC-Sierra).
Kal founded Lightwire - the first company to commercialize Si photonics (acquired by Cisco) based products meeting industry standards.
Kal began his career at AT&T Bell Labs and holds more than 60 U.S. patents. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Columbia University, and a Masters from IIT-Kanpur.
Kal founded AANetcom - the first company to design & commercialize multi-channel CMOS SerDes (acquired by PMC-Sierra).
Kal founded Lightwire - the first company to commercialize Si photonics (acquired by Cisco) based products meeting industry standards.
Kal began his career at AT&T Bell Labs and holds more than 60 U.S. patents. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Columbia University, and a Masters from IIT-Kanpur.
Jayant Gadre
Jayant was CTO of Artel, a managed network services provider. The company had grown from a
startup to revenues over $400M when it was acquired by TPG. Prior to that he held senior
positions at Verizon, AT&T, Bell Laboratories and several software and telecommunications
startups. He holds a doctorate in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University and holds 15
granted patents in internet and telecommunications technologies.
Farrokh Billimoria
Farrokh is a Managing Partner and Co-founder of Green Leaf Real Estate Capital, which has ~$1B
in assets. Previously, he co-founded Artiman Ventures, a VC fund focused on US-India
cross-border deals. He was also a General Partner in the CSFB Venture capital group. Farrokh has
a BE in Electrical Engineering and a MS in Computer Science, and has also completed various
Senior Executive programs at Stanford.
Joseph Kahn
Joseph M. Kahn is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. His research
addresses communication and imaging through optical fibers, including modulation, detection,
signal processing and spatial multiplexing. He received A.B. and Ph.D. degrees in Physics from
U.C. Berkeley in 1981 and 1986. From 1987-1990, he was at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Crawford Hill
Laboratory, in Holmdel, NJ. He was on the Electrical Engineering faculty at U.C. Berkeley from
1990-2003. In 2000, he co-founded StrataLight Comm.
Shrenik Deliwala
Inventor and founder, Shrenik Deliwala has over 80 patents that span the fields of photonics,
communication, electronics and packaging. He has a Ph.D. in physics from Harvard University and
has worked in the field of photonics for the past 30 years. At Emcode Photonics, he is
pioneering novel and scalable spectroscopy systems. At Analog Devices, Shrenik successfully
invented and brought to market optical technologies generating over $100 million in market
revenues. At his previous start-up, Shrenik pioneered a highly successful silicon photonics
platform which was sold to Cisco for $270 million in 2012.
Ameesh Divatia
Ameesh Divatia is the Co-Founder and CEO of Baffle, Inc., a cybersecurity company delivering
privacy-preserving analytics for enterprise data. A serial entrepreneur with over $425 million
in successful exits, he specializes in turning complex technologies into thriving
businesses.
Before Baffle, he led Lightwire, Inc., a silicon photonics innovator acquired by Cisco for $271 million, and co-founded Aarohi Communications, a storage virtualization pioneer acquired by Emulex. His first startup, PipeLinks, developed integrated optical routing technology and was Cisco's first optical acquisition at $126 million.
Ameesh holds a Master's in Electrical Engineering from UC Irvine and began his career as a network design engineer at AMD and 3Com before becoming a three-time founder and CEO.
Before Baffle, he led Lightwire, Inc., a silicon photonics innovator acquired by Cisco for $271 million, and co-founded Aarohi Communications, a storage virtualization pioneer acquired by Emulex. His first startup, PipeLinks, developed integrated optical routing technology and was Cisco's first optical acquisition at $126 million.
Ameesh holds a Master's in Electrical Engineering from UC Irvine and began his career as a network design engineer at AMD and 3Com before becoming a three-time founder and CEO.