Kymata, a specialist in optoelectronic circuits, is one of the most successful of a clutch of fast growing start-ups in central Scotland. A year ago, the business had 15 employees; now the number tops 200.
The company is based in a sparkling new building on a Livingston industrial estate, housing offices and laboratory space. It has just bought the building next door, which was vacated when its "old economy" tenant - a company making food processing equipment - went into liquidation.
Kymata makes circuits and components used to carry voice and data messages. Its products use light rather than electrical signals for greater speed and capacity.
Chief executive Brendan Hyland says: "In designing these devices we're pushing the boundaries of physics. We've got the capacity to be one of the largest production companies around in our field."
British Telecom reckons the business has potential - it has a 5% stake. The company's customers are telecoms companies around the globe.
Kymata (the name is the Greek for "waves") was a spin-out from Southampton University in 1998. However, much of the original technology has been dropped in favour of more interesting intellectual property from Glasgow University.
Mr Hyland believes optoelectronics could be crucial to the success of Silicon Glen. He says: "If you try to go into things like software, you can always get better and cheaper engineers in Bangalore. We need process skills - we're pulling together a highly skilled team."
He says those skills are readily available in Scotland, given the proximity to universities in Edinburgh and Glasgow. "The region's got an extremely high quality of life, without the traffic of the south-east. I must admit, traffic really put me off when I lived in Cambridge for a few years.
"It takes me 25 minutes to drive 20 miles to work, from the south of Edinburgh. You try doing that in the south-east."
Mr Hyland believes there is a tendency to exaggerate the importance of the net in the growth of the hi-tech sector. "The net is not the only driver of growth." For Kymata, the "new economy" is more about changes in telecoms - particularly the public's keenness to embrace mobile phones.
The need for instant mobility of information has stimulated demand for all sorts of new communication technology. "The skill of the opto-industry has not yet dawned on the general population," Mr Hyland says. "This is the electronics of a new generation."
