Although the volume of deals was low, interesting early-stage deals in energy and quantum applications stand out.
Photonics VC Update is a monthly series to brief scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and business leaders about the venture funding of emerging companies in various photonics technologies.
September 3, 2024
While fusion energy has received a lot of venture capital attention and has been the subject of recent photonics deals (see laserfocusworld.com/55001630 and laserfocusworld.com/55094003), photonics is also finding a role generating fuel for traditional nuclear reactors, helping to enable small modular reactors and microreactors. This month, LIS Technologies announced a $12 million Seed round led by 28 Ventures Fund to advance its laser technology for uranium enrichment. The company uses infrared wavelengths to selectively excite the U235 isotopes to separate them from other isotopes and plans to expand its operations at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The quantum computing hardware industry leverages photonics in several ways, including interconnecting quantum modules or directly controlling and interacting with the qubits themselves in the case of trapped ions or neutral atoms (see laserfocusworld.com/55130684). The fundamental qubit elements, however, can also be built from photonics itself. Rotonium raised a $1.1 million Seed round from Obloo Ventures and Galaxia. The Italian startup is leveraging properties of orbital angular momentum in single photons to build qubits (or even qudits), eventually hoping to get to room-temperature quantum computers. This initial funding is focused on the development of the platform in silicon photonics.
About the Author
Eric Hall is a managing partner of Entrada Ventures, a seed-stage fund investing in innovative technologies. He has worked alongside multiple Nobel Prize winners in building successful startups across various photonics technologies, including Aurrion (silicon photonics), Soraa (GaN LEDs), Kaai (GaN lasers), and Agility Communications (InP photonics), leading to multiple acquisitions. Subsequently, Hall led several transactions as an investment banker at Golding Partners before moving into early-stage investing. He earned his Bachelor of Science in engineering physics at UC Berkeley, a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Columbia Business School, and a PhD in materials at UC Santa Barbara.
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