PHOTON IP raises €4.75M seed funding led by Innovation Industries, with Faber, BOM, and PhotonDelta
13 January 2025EINDHOVEN, the Netherlands. PHOTON IP, a manufacturer of advanced low-power optical chips, announced today it has raised a 4.75 million euro seed round. The round was led by Innovation Industries with participation from Faber and Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij (BOM) and with funding support from PhotonDelta. With this financing, PHOTON IP will accelerate the industrialisation and commercialisation of its breakthrough technology that efficiently combines silicon photonics with active III-V materials.
As optical communication networks, data centres for AI and cutting-edge sensing applications are critically dependent on optical chips; the core technologies available to efficiently integrate multiple materials on a single photonic chip are becoming a fundamental barrier. Existing schemes for photonic integration can’t keep pace with delivering the performance, energy efficiency, and small footprint required. PHOTON IP’s technology addresses this challenge by reinventing the way silicon and different III-V materials, such as indium phosphide (which are essential for lasers and high-performance modulators), are integrated onto a single photonic chip. This breakthrough radically simplifies the manufacturing process and opens a path towards mass deployment for advanced low-power optical engines for a wide range of applications.
“We’re not just advancing integrated photonics — we’re simplifying the manufacturing process for photonic circuits as well,” said PHOTON IP co-founder and CEO Rui Santos. “With our advanced optical engines, we’re setting a new performance benchmark and eliminating the barriers to efficiently combining III-V materials with silicon. This funding expands our ability to grow our team and bring our first products to market.”
Vincent Kamphorst, investment director at Innovation Industries: “We are excited to announce our investment in PHOTON IP. By effectively coupling diverse photonic platforms in a mass-manufacturable process, the company aims to deliver high-performing photonic solutions at volume. We look forward to supporting PHOTON IP as they develop.”
PHOTON IP’s latest fundraising follows the initial investment by Vigo Ventures in 2021 and the first contracts won with pioneering customers across the globe, for which the first products are being co-developed and tested. Since its founding in 2020, its pan-European team has received significant traction and recognition for its groundbreaking innovation, including grant support of more than 2 million euros from the European Innovation Council.