Photonic computing startup Lightmatter, building AI data centre networking chips, has secured $400 million in Series D funding. This round values the company at $4.4 billion and brings the total capital raised to date to $850 million.
The round was led by new investors advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc. with participation from existing investors, including Fidelity Management & Research Company and GV (Google Ventures), which recently invested in Driver and Distance Technologies.
With this funding, Lightmatter will ready its technology known as Passage for mass deployment in partner data centres, enabling the scaling required for sustained AI innovation. It also plans to expand its 200-person team across the US and Canada.
“Lightmatter has the technology, leadership, and team to bring the industry the future of computing through photonics,” said Tony Wang, portfolio manager of the T. Rowe Price Science & Technology Fund. “The demand for AI supercomputers that will power the next wave of frontier AI models is strong and growing. We’re pleased to back Lightmatter on their mission to help power AI infrastructure.”
“AI is evolving faster than anyone could have predicted, pushing the limits of data center technology,” said Erik Nordlander, General Partner at GV. “Photonics isn’t just a breakthrough; it’s the future of million-xPU data centers for AI. We’ve proudly supported Lightmatter since the beginning, and after six years, our belief in their vision has only grown stronger. Lightmatter is the definitive leader in data center photonics, and we’re excited to stand behind them as they unlock the next era of AI innovation and scale.”
New appointees
The California-headquartered startup’s Series D fundraise comes on the heels of the appointment of Simona Jankowski as Lightmatter’s Chief Financial Officer, the appointment of Richard Beyer and Robin Washington to its Board of Directors, and incredible customer traction. Since the company’s last funding announcement in 2023, the company expanded its footprint with an office in Toronto and continues to grow its team.
Unlocks next phase in computing infrastructure
Next-generation data centres for AI and HPC demand unprecedented performance density that requires extremely high bandwidth I/O in chip designs.
Founded in 2017 by Nicholas Harris, Darius Bunandar, and Thomas Graham, Lightmatter’s Passage technology addresses this challenge by leveraging 3D-stacked photonics chips to move data. It enables direct 3D integration of numerous customer ASIC chiplets (GPU’s, accelerators, etc.) onto a multi-reticle optical ‘interposer’, enabling massive bandwidth photonic communication at maximum radix.
Coupled with ultra-dense fiber attach and fully integrated control circuitry, Passage delivers the scaling required for the most demanding next-generation applications including trillion-parameter LLMs and AGI.
“We’re not just advancing AI infrastructure—we’re reinventing it,” said Lightmatter co-founder and CEO Nick Harris. “With Passage, the world’s fastest photonic engine, we’re setting a new standard for performance and breaking through the barriers that limit AI computing. This funding accelerates our ability to scale, delivering the supercomputers of tomorrow today.”
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