Photonic startup Lightmatter raises $400 million amid AI datacenter boom, eyes IPO next (updated)

AMD Industries

16/10/2024 14:59

(Add investor comment in paragraph 10-11)

        * 
      Lightmatter raises $400 mln in Series D funding led by T.
Rowe
Price
    

        * 
      CEO eyes future IPO, sees demand from cloud and AI
companies
    

  
    By Krystal Hu
       Oct 16 - Lightmatter, a Mountain View,
California-headquartered startup building photonic tech in
datacenter networking chips, said on Wednesday it has raised
$400 million in a Series D funding round at a valuation of $4.4
billion.
    New investor T. Rowe Price led the funding round, with
participation from existing backers including Fidelity and
Alphabet's GV.    
    The latest funding came less than a year since the last
raise, bringing total funding since inception to $850 million as
the company tries to capitalize on the datacenter boom and need
for more efficient infrastructure in the artificial intelligence
(AI) race set off by ChatGPT.
    Lightmatter said its fresh capital will be used to
manufacture and deploy its photonic chips in partner data
centers, as well as expanding its 200-person team across the
U.S. and Canada.
    The funding follows the appointment of former Nvidia
executive Simona Jankowski as CFO, and could pave its way for a
potential public offering.
    “This is probably our last private funding round,” said
co-founder and CEO Nick Harris. “We've booked very large deals.
And that is the reason that this level of funding is possible.
We see a future where most of the high performance computing and
AI chips very soon are going to be based on Lightmatter tech."
    The company, which develops methods for computer chips to
communicate and perform calculations using silicon photonics,
said it sees huge demand from cloud providers and AI companies,
but declined to name its customers.
    While the concept of using light in computing isn't new and
offers potential for faster, more energy-efficient processes,
creating the necessary components has historically been
challenging.
    Founded in 2017, Lightmatter says its proprietary technology
enables photonics chips to move data, increasing AI cluster
bandwidth and performance while reducing power consumption. Its
first large clusters are expected to be running next year.
    It competes with other companies working on photonics
technology, as well as major chipmakers who might have their own
internal efforts to develop such tech. Investors in Lightmatter
say the startup could benefit from working with players across
the industry.
  
    “They're trying to have everyone in their ecosystem. This is
a component that can work with probably any chip on the market, 
We're not trying to lock anyone into any any particular
ecosystem. It could work with Nvidia chip or Intel or AMD, or
any custom chip," said Erik Nordlander, general partner at GV. 
  
     

(Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)