News: Optoelectronics
30 January 2023
Vector Photonics receives over £2.4m of equity investment
Vector Photonics Ltd (which was spun off from Scotland’s University of Glasgow in March 2020, based on research led by professor Richard Hogg) has received over £2.4m of equity investment to further commercialize its unique, all-semiconductor photonic-crystal surface-emitting laser (PCSEL) technology.
The new investment comes from a group of specialist funding companies. Clean Growth Fund is the major investor, followed by the Foresight WAE Technology (FWT) Funds, joined by the UK Innovation & Science Seed Fund (UKI2S), Scottish Enterprise and Equity Gap, which led the round.
Clean Growth Fund and Scottish Enterprise are new investors. Clean Growth Fund is focused on clean tech firms that reduce carbon emissions and support a sustainable future, with Vector Photonics being the first Scottish company in its portfolio. Scottish Enterprise is Scotland’s national economic development agency and works to transform the Scottish economy by helping businesses innovate and scale.
The remaining investors have been involved with Vector Photonics from the beginning. The FWT Funds invest in high-growth-potential companies with innovative and transformational technologies; UKI2S is a specialist deep-tech seed fund focused on spin outs from the UK’s research base; and Equity Gap is an angel investment syndicate, investing at an early stage in new technology businesses throughout Scotland.
PCSELs are claimed to revolutionize semiconductor laser manufacture and performance, reducing power consumption, latency, physical connection size and costs. Vector Photonics is targeting the datacoms market, where its lasers are said to significantly reduce the power consumption in next-generation data centers and co-located optics applications. In future, PCSEL technology will also enable significant performance improvements in metal and plastic printing, light detection & ranging (LiDAR) and optical sensing – some of the fastest-growing technology markets in the world.
Vector’s £1.6m equity investment takes seed funding round to £4m
