US-based photonics supercomputing startup Lightmatter has secured $400m in Series D funding, aimed at accelerating artificial intelligence (AI) computing using light.
This investment round has quadrupled the company’s valuation to $4.4bn and increased its total capital raised to $850m.
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Lightmatter plans to use the funding to support the mass deployment of its Passage technology in partner data centres.
The Series D round was led by new investors advised by T Rowe Price Associates, with participation from existing investors, including Fidelity Management & Research Company and GV.
As AI models become more complex and training clusters exceed 100,000 XPUs or a broad category of processing units, traditional electronic interconnects are struggling to meet the high-bandwidth, low-latency data movement required for scaling AI workloads.
Lightmatter’s Passage technology utilises 3D-stacked photonics chips for data movement, which promises to significantly enhance AI cluster bandwidth and performance while reducing power consumption.
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By GlobalDataPassage represents the first photonic engine to deliver IO in 3D, which increases the XPU shoreline to support additional memory.
This innovation is crucial for overcoming the bottlenecks that hinder AI performance scaling, the startup explained.
Lightmatter’s technology is expected to transform data movement across AI clusters, enabling systems to scale efficiently and meet the demands of next-generation AI models.
Lightmatter co-founder and CEO Nick Harris said: “We are not just advancing AI infrastructure—we are reinventing it.
With Passage, the world’s fastest photonic engine, we are 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.”
T Rowe Price science & technology fund portfolio manager Tony Wang said: “Lightmatter has the technology, leadership, and team to bring the industry the future of computing through photonics.
“The demand for AI supercomputers that will power the next wave of frontier AI models is strong and growing. We are pleased to back Lightmatter on their mission to help power AI infrastructure.”
The previous funding milestone for Lightmatter was in June 2023, when the company raised $154m in a Series C funding round.
