A $155 million Series C-2 fundraising round has been successfully obtained by Lightmatter, an up-and-coming pioneer in the photonics space. Prominent investors Viking Global Investors and GV (Google Ventures) led this round, with participation from additional investors. With this most recent investment, Lightmatter’s fundraising total has topped $420 million, propelling the company’s valuation to an impressive $1.2 billion.
For Lightmatter, this funding would come at a critical juncture as it sets up to meet the growing needs for high-performance computing (HPC) in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) innovation. With the additional cash, Lightmatter says it will be able to accelerate its expansion and concentrate on growing its elite team and office footprint. It would also expedite the business’s ability to improve performance for the most complex AI tasks.
Leading the way in the development of cutting-edge photonic technologies, Lightmatter is revolutionizing computer systems. The way chips calculate and communicate will be completely changed by these developments. For large cloud providers, semiconductor manufacturers, and businesses struggling with their computing demands, this technology could especially be vital. The products from Lightmatter include an extensive range of photonics-enabled hardware and software that are intended to improve performance and save electricity at the same time. This can especially be important for compute-intensive jobs like artificial intelligence (AI), which are quickly becoming essential to all major industries.
"Lightmatter is poised to be a pivotal force in driving the next wave of computing systems, which will further catalyze AI innovation," said Lightmatter CEO and co-founder Nick Harris. “Our dedication is in maintaining the advances made in computer performance via our developments in photonic technology. This coincides with a period of difficulty for the industry, including rising power consumption and a decelerating rate of transistor scaling.”
Increasing Its Staff
Investors see Lightmatter's potential with similar optimism. General Partner Erik Nordlander of GV emphasized the company's contribution to addressing the growing need for innovative chip communication and computing solutions, especially in the rapidly developing area of generative artificial intelligence. “Lightmatter is utilizing the potential of silicon photonics to tackle these challenges head-on, breaking through performance bottlenecks, enhancing bandwidth, and facilitating the growth and scaling of AI models,” he said.
Lightmatter has had tremendous growth since its most recent fundraising announcement in May 2023, increasing its staff by more than 50% to meet customer demand and product development goals. A new office in Toronto is scheduled to open in 2024 as part of this development. The business has also added important new members to its executive team - as Vice President of Data Center Architecture, Danner Stodolsky joins the team with a wealth of knowledge from his past positions at Google and SambaNova. With more than 20 years of expertise in the semiconductor business, including a recent position at Dialog Semiconductor, Colin Sturt was named General Counsel. These strategic additions would demonstrate Lightmatter’s dedication to achieving its commercial and technical goals, establishing the company as a key player in the development of computers and artificial intelligence.
