LONDON — Optical switch developer Polatis Inc. (Cambridge, England and Andover MA.) has raised $8 million in new VC funding. The company had previously raised about $23 million in venture capital funding.

Return backers include 3i Ventures, Alta-Berkeley Ventures, DFJ Esprit, Flagship Ventures, Gainesborough & Peponi Investments, JK&B Partners and Massachusetts Technology Development Corp.

As part of the round, the company added CEO Gerald Wesel and senior advisor Niel Ransom to its board of directors.

"There is increasing demand for all-optical products in the markets we serve. The investment enables us to create further demand for our existing products by expanding worldwide channel partners; and to accelerate the development of solutions that scale to the largest deployments while maintaining superior performance and reliability characteristics," commented Wesel, who was appointed CEO in January this year.

Polatis Inc was formed in 2005 when Billerica-based optical components maker Continuum Photonics Inc. merged with British optical switch maker Polatis Ltd.

The company came together with the aim of developing an all-optical switch for the transport layer of networks that will help enterprise and telecommunications network managers shift from copper to all-fiber networks.

Polatis launched its largest-scale switch earlier this year, capable of handling 80 fibers per switch, as opposed to its previous version, which worked with 32 fibers. The boxes can also be configured together, allowing for carrier-grade scalability.

New Board member Dr. Niel Ransom, a veteran of the telecommunications market, has served strategic technical and architectural roles at Bell Laboratories and Bell South, and most recently held the position of CTO at Alcatel, now Alcatel-Lucent.

As of March of 2009, Polatis employed 80 people.

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