Dr. Kurt J. Weingarten

Kurt is a technology entrepreneur in lasers and photonics of both VC-funded and self-funded start-ups. He founded and led Time-Bandwidth Products to acquisition by Lumentum (Nasdaq LITE, previously JDSU) in 2014 for ultrafast laser products for use in production of semiconductor and consumer electronic devices.

After his Ph.D. at Stanford University (1988) using picosecond lasers to measure high-speed gallium-arsenide integrated circuits, Kurt worked at Lightwave Electronics in Silicon Valley, pioneering the first commercial diode-pumped picosecond lasers. He then founded Time-Bandwidth Products in Zurich, Switzerland in the mid-1990's to develop simple, robust picosecond and femtosecond (ultrafast) lasers based on SESAM technology for industrial applications, allowing for the medical and electronics industry to successfully use these lasers in multiple applications. The company was acquired by JDSU in January 2014 to accelerate adoption of these products into the growing industrial market for ultrafast lasers.

He also founded and served as CTO of GigaTera, a VC-backed telecom start-up from 2000 to 2003, developing ultra-high-speed pulsed telecom lasers for long-haul transmission systems.

Kurt’s experience includes company financing and venture capital, M&A, IP strategies and technology licensing, team building, production scale-up, go-to-market strategies for high-end photonics products, global customer and supply chain development and strategies. He works out of Zurich, Switzerland, helping to catalyze technology and photonics start-ups in Europe and worldwide. He currently serves as a board member of Scrona, a Swiss-based nano-printing start-up with applications in display, semiconductors, electronics packaging, and life sciences, and K2 Photonics, developing high-performance dual-comb ultrafast lasers for precision measurements such as sub-micron long-distance non-contact ranging.