OpenLight has closed a $34 million Series A funding round, co-led by Xora Innovation and Capricorn Investment Group. The oversubscribed round also drew participation from Mayfield, Juniper Networks (now part of HPE), Lam Capital, New Legacy Ventures, and K2 Access.

This financing marks OpenLight’s official move from being a Synopsys subsidiary to becoming an independent, venture-backed company. The raise positions the Santa Barbara–based startup to meet surging demand for high-performance, energy-efficient optical solutions in AI data centers.

Photonics at the Heart of AI Infrastructure

As AI workloads scale, data centers are increasingly shifting from electrical to optical interconnects to handle massive data movement efficiently. OpenLight’s integrated photonics platform plays directly into this trend, offering solutions designed to improve bandwidth, reduce power consumption, and support next-generation architectures.

“Xora has conviction that the field of photonics is going to see exponential growth in the coming years. 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.”

Phil Inagaki, Managing Partner & CIO at Xora

Expanding Product Capabilities With Fresh Capital

The new funding will allow OpenLight to expand its Process Design Kit (PDK) library, which includes both passive and active photonics components. The company plans to scale up its advanced 400Gb/s modulator and its indium phosphide–based on-chip laser technology.

OpenLight also intends to accelerate its roadmap for standardized reference Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) at 1.6Tb/s and 3.2Tb/s, giving customers a wider range of design-ready building blocks. Additionally, the team will grow over the next year to support partners moving from prototyping to large-scale production.

“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. This funding will allow us to scale our operations, deepen our R&D efforts and bring our groundbreaking products to market faster.”

Dr. Adam Carter, CEO of OpenLight

A Platform Already in Action

At the core of OpenLight’s offering is its foundry-validated PDK, built on heterogeneous integration of indium phosphide and silicon photonics. The platform provides access to integrated lasers, modulators, amplifiers, and detectors—all essential for custom Photonic Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (PASICs).

Validated at Tower Semiconductor, the PDK enables customers to design chips that are production-ready from the outset, shortening development cycles. OpenLight currently holds more than 360 patents around its technology and reports that more than 20 companies are already designing PASICs using its platform.

Company Roots and Market Reach

Founded as a Synopsys spinout, OpenLight is headquartered in Santa Barbara, California, with offices in Silicon Valley. Its technology spans a wide range of applications beyond AI data centers, including telecom, automotive and industrial sensing, IoT devices, healthcare, and even quantum computing.

The company emphasizes its “open” approach, providing customers with access to integrated lasers and a robust library of components—something that has historically been a bottleneck in silicon photonics development.

A Strong Syndicate of Backers

The investor lineup reflects both deep technical expertise and long-term conviction in the photonics market. Alongside Xora Innovation and Capricorn, Mayfield, HPE’s Juniper Networks, Lam Capital, New Legacy Ventures, and K2 Access joined the round.

“Optical connectivity in data centers has become critical for next-generation scale-up and scale-out AI architectures. OpenLight’s heterogeneous integration delivers on all three axes of performance, reliability and cost, which will enable the explosive growth of optical IO.”

Dipender Saluja, Managing Partner at Capricorn’s Technology Impact Funds

Origianl Creator: Ekaterina Pisareva
Original Link: https://justainews.com/industries/it-and-technology/openlight-grabs-34m-series-a-to-power-ai-ready-photonics-chips/
Originally Posted: Tue, 26 Aug 2025 11:15:51 +0000