Arvind Chhatbar, CEO of Enablence. (Darren Brown, OBJ)

Enablence Technologies is planning to raise up to $15 million in a brokered private placement of the company's common shares, in order to expand its product lines and speed up commercialization.

The Ottawa-based fabless optical components maker said it intends to use the funds to "take advantage of new opportunities that are complementary to its plans for rapid deployment of Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) technology."

The company noted that its current plans to introduce its planar lightwave circuit(PLC)-based diplexers and triplexers for FTTH are adequately financed and do not depend on the success of the offering.

"This additional financing will allow us to capitalize on new complementary product solutions while continuing with our current plans for the introduction of PLC-based diplexers and triplexers," said Enablence chief executive Arvind Chhatbar in a statement. "Taking advantage of these opportunities now will strengthen Enablence's leadership position within the emerging FTTH market."

A syndicate led by Paradigm Capital Inc. and including Wellington West Capital Markets Inc. and Raymond James Ltd will act as agents for the offering.

The transaction is expected to be completed on or before Feb. 28 of this year.

In a separate announcement, Enablence said it had appointed Cistel Technology founder and president Dr. Nishith Goel to its board of directors, as part of its strategy to build global ties.

"Dr. Goel's experience in building his companies from the ground up and managing operations in multiple countries is of immense value to us," said Mr. Chhatbar. "As a veteran technology executive and entrepreneur, Dr. Goel's knowledge and experience will be valuable to us as we ramp up for volume production and sales using multiple contract manufacturers."

The appointment follows last week's announcement of the addition of former top Alcatel executive Stephan Guerin to Enablence's board.