OpenLight Secures $34m in Funding

OpenLight, a designer of custom application-specific photonic chips, has secured $34 million in a funding round that was co-led by Xora Innovation and Capricorn Investment Group. Other participants include Mayfield; HPE’s Juniper Networks; Lam Capital, the corporate venture arm of Lam Research Corporation; New Legacy Ventures; and K2 Access.

“As we enter this next phase of our company’s growth, we are excited to be adding such strong investors with deep roots and expertise in the semiconductor and photonics industry,” said Dr. Adam Carter, CEO of OpenLight. “With this strong syndicate of investors, we can push the boundaries of innovation and deliver transformative solutions to our customers. This funding will allow us to scale our operations, deepen our R&D efforts, and bring our groundbreaking products to market faster. We believe heterogeneous integrated silicon photonics will transform the way data is processed and transmitted, and we’re excited to be at the forefront of this revolution.”

“Xora has conviction that the field of photonics is going to see exponential growth in the coming years, and III-V heterogeneous integration is one of the foundational capabilities that will enable this growth,” said Phil Inagaki, managing partner & chief investment officer, Xora. “We see OpenLight not only as a technology leader in this field, but also as a company positioned to quickly scale manufacturing with foundry partners. One of the critical challenges for the photonics industry in the back half of this decade will be achieving scale, and we see OpenLight’s PDK as an important part of the solution.”