Photonics VC Update is a monthly series to brief scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and business leaders about the venture funding of emerging companies in various photonics technologies.
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It turns out that venture investors may actually work in summer, as there was a flurry of photonics funding announcements in September.
To begin, there was another large fusion deal (see the March Photonics VC Update and June Photonics VC Update for prior deals). Marvel Fusion announced a €62.8M Series B led by HV Capital with participation from b2venture, BayernKapital, Deutsche Telekom, SPRIND, and Tenglemann Ventures. Marvel is targeting a big advance in inertial confinement fusion based on the improved power and efficiency of its lasers.
Photonic quantum computers, which were featured in last month’s update, saw two more deals. Quantum Source, an Israel-based company developing photonic quantum computers, announced a $50M Series A investment round led by Eclipse, with participation from Standard Investments, Level VC, and Canon Equity. This round brings the company’s total funding raised to over $77M. The second deal was for Italian startup Ephos, which raised a $8.5M Seed led by Starlight Venture to leverage its low-loss, glass-based photonic chip platform as a path to a photonic quantum computer.
In MedTech, SpectraWave, a Bedford, MA-based medical imaging startup focused on coronary artery disease, raised $50M Series B funding led by Johnson and Johnson Innovation and joined by S3 Ventures, Lumira Ventures, SV Health Investors, Deerfield Management, NovaVenture, and Heartwork Capital.
The networking challenges for datacenters and AI clusters continues to be an area of interest for investors; earlier in the year around the time of a couple of key conferences, we saw a group of fundings announced (see the March Photonics VC Update). With ECOC just finishing at the end of September, it is not surprising that we saw a similar collection of announcements this past month. Receiving the biggest buzz in September was AttoTude, founded by noted industry veterans Dave Welch and Joy Laskar. The company announced a $29M Series A round led by Sutter Hill Ventures, Canaan Partners, and Wing Ventures with the goal of delivering significant improvements in speed, power, reliability, and cost compared to existing interconnect solutions. Interestingly, we also saw two strong funding announcements from companies looking to address the interconnect challenges with thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) integrated photonics platforms. HyperLight, a Cambridge, MA-based company, announced a $37M Series B, led by Summit Partners with participation from existing investors Xora Innovation and Foothill Ventures advancing very high-speed and low-power modulators. Similarly, Lightium, a one-year-old Zürich startup, raised a $7M Seed co-led by Vsquared Ventures and Lakestar and is looking to make a TFLN platform available as a foundry service.
In the display market, Vienna-based TriLite, a developer of laser beam scanning (LBS) technology for projection displays, has extended its Series A to more than €20M with the addition of Continental's Corporate Venture Capital Unit and an undisclosed global electronics supplier. Morphotonics, a Dutch company developing nanoimprint technology for displays like 3D screens and smart glasses, announced an $11.1M Series B round co-led by Brabant Development Agency and Innovation Industries with 3M Ventures also participating.
Investment in photonics-based sensors was also robust. InSpek, a French startup commercializing photonic integrated circuits for detecting critical molecular-level changes in bioprocess conditions, announced a €3.5M seed funding round co-led by Breega and Wind and followed by existing investor Quantonation. Boulder, CO-based Mesa Quantum raised a $3.7M round to chipscale quantum sensors to address coming challenges in positioning, navigation, and timing. Finally, while I typically do not like to include funding events where the investment details are not publicly disclosed, I wanted to cover SiLC’s funding by Honda Xcelerator Ventures. Founded by a serial entrepreneur, SiLC is a developer of a silicon photonics LiDAR platform targeting industrial applications, and it is great to see activity in that market. The company has previously announced $56M in funding.
Eric Hall
Eric Hall is a managing partner of Entrada Ventures, a seed-stage fund investing in innovative technologies. He has worked alongside multiple Nobel Prize winners in building successful startups across various photonics technologies, including Aurrion (silicon photonics), Soraa (GaN LEDs), Kaai (GaN lasers), and Agility Communications (InP photonics), leading to multiple acquisitions. Subsequently, Hall led several transactions as an investment banker at Golding Partners before moving into early-stage investing. He earned his Bachelor of Science in engineering physics at UC Berkeley, a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Columbia Business School, and a PhD in materials at UC Santa Barbara.