News: Optoelectronics
3 October 2024
HyperLight raises $37m in Series B funding round to accelerate product development and meet demand
HyperLight Corp of Cambridge, MA, USA — which designs and manufactures photonic integrated circuits (PICs) based on its proprietary production-grade thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) platform — has raised $37m in a Series B funding round led by Summit Partners and including existing investors Xora Innovation (a deep tech venture fund backed by Temasek) and Foothill Ventures. Summit Partners’ managing director & CEO Peter Chung joins HyperLight’s board of directors.
Existing PICs have performance limitations due to their material properties and have become bottlenecks for high-performance optical communication, says HyperLight. The firm claims that its TFLN PICs deliver unmatched bandwidth and energy efficiency well-aligned with the current and future needs of AI/data-center infrastructure, telecoms optical networks, and high-performance computing. Since it was founded in 2018, HyperLight has delivered industrial-scale TFLN PICs with a trusted supply chain. The new financing allows it to accelerate product development and meet rapidly growing customer demand.
“We believe TFLN will be the photonics platform of the future and identified HyperLight as an emerging category leader,” comments Chung. “The HyperLight team has established an impressive track record of pioneering innovation and strong execution. In a short time, the company has evolved this critical technology into market-ready products with a production-ready supply chain,” he adds.
“We are thrilled to welcome Summit Partners as a new investor given their capabilities and deep experience in photonics, including investments in E-TEK Dynamics, Finisar, MACOM and Acacia Communications,” says HyperLight’s president & CEO Mian Zhang. “This financing round, supported by investors with demonstrated experience in the photonics industry, will enhance our ability to serve the current and future needs of our customers as a trusted innovation partner.”
