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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With three big and prominent fundings, optical networks for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure dominated photonics venture funding in October. Regular readers will note that this area has been hot all year (see the September Photonics VC Update and March Photonics VC Update) and likely will continue to attract significant investment, as there are others known to be gearing up to fundraise.
Mountain View, CA-based Lightmatter headlines the group for October with a $400M Series D led by T. Rowe Price Associates, with participation from existing investors Fidelity Management and Research Company and GV. Valuing the company at $4.4B, the investment is intended to advance Lightmatter’s optical interconnect layer that allows hundreds of GPUs to work synchronously.
Xscape Photonics, a Santa Clara, CA-based company founded by several silicon photonics veterans, announced a $44M Series A led by IAG Capital Partners with participation by several others to develop its scalable, multicolor, programmable photonics platform for AI data center fabrics.
Finally, U.K.-based Oriole Networks, which is developing optical switching technology to reduce the power consumption required by AI workloads, raised a $22M Series A led by Plural with participation from all existing investors.
While the AI infrastructure venture rounds dominated the news, funding in other areas continued to be strong. In quantum computing, for example, Boston, MA-based Quera announced a strategic investment from Google Quantum AI. Although as previously mentioned I don’t like including rounds in which the terms are not publicly announced, I think this announcement is worth including. Google Quantum AI has one of the biggest efforts in quantum computing for both hardware and software, and Quera, a Harvard and MIT spinout that makes neutral atom-based quantum computers using laser cooling, has made a splash during the past year within the quantum community with its roadmaps.
Finally, following last month’s announcement by SiLC, the funding landscape for LiDAR seems to be strengthening again. Lidwave, an Israeli developer of fully integrated photonic chips for Lidar, raised $10M in seed funding co-led by Jumpspeed Ventures and Next Gear Ventures.
Notably, one of the most prominent end users of LiDAR technology, Waymo, also announced in October a $5.6B round led by original parent company Alphabet to expand its robotaxi service. Since my 5-year-old discovered riding around in fully driverless Waymo vehicles (and, perhaps more importantly, control of the music during the ride), he refuses any other mode of transport around our San Francisco neighborhood. I wonder if my own personal skyrocketing spend was a market signal supporting this round and the activity in LiDAR.
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.