Ayar Labs, a start-up based in Santa Clara, California, secured $130 million in additional financing for its optical I/O solution.
With the new investment, Ayar Labs said it is ramping production and securing supply chain partners, as signaled by previously announced multi-year strategic collaborations with Lumentum and Macom, both leaders in optical and photonic products, as well as GlobalFoundries on its new GF Fotonix platform. The company also confirmed that it made its first volume commercial shipments under contract and expects to ship thousands of units of its in-package optical interconnect by end of year.
The new funding was led by Boardman Bay Capital Management. Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and NVIDIA entered this investment round, joining existing strategic investors Applied Ventures LLC, GlobalFoundries, Intel Capital, and Lockheed Martin Ventures. Other new strategic and financial investors participating in the round include Agave SPV, Atreides Capital, Berkeley Frontier Fund, IAG Capital Partners, Infinitum Capital, Nautilus Venture Partners, and Tyche Partners. They join existing investors such as BlueSky Capital, Founders Fund, Playground Global, and TechU Venture Partners.
“As a successful technology-focused crossover fund operating for over a decade, Ayar Labs represents our largest private investment to date,” said Will Graves, Chief Investment Officer at Boardman Bay Capital Management. “We believe that silicon photonics-based optical interconnects in the data center and telecommunications markets represent a massive new opportunity and that Ayar Labs is the leader in this emerging space with proven technology, a fantastic team, and the right ecosystem partners and strategy.”
“Optical connectivity will be important to scale accelerated computing clusters to meet the fast-growing demands of AI and HPC workloads,” said Bill Dally, Chief Scientist and Senior Vice President of Research at NVIDIA. “Ayar Labs has unique optical I/O technology that meets the needs of scaling next-generation silicon photonics-based architectures for AI.”
“Ayar Labs’ highly differentiated technology is crucial to supporting the high-performance computing architectures of the future,” said Paul Glaser, Vice President and Head of Hewlett Packard Pathfinder, HPE’s venture arm. “Ayar Labs represents a strategic investment opportunity for HPE to help our customers more efficiently derive greater insights and value from their data.”
“The overall financing is much larger than we originally targeted, underscoring the market opportunity for optical I/O and Ayar Labs’ leadership position in silicon photonics-based interconnect solutions,” said Charles Wuischpard, CEO of Ayar Labs. “This financing allows us to fully qualify our solution against industry standards for quality and reliability and scale production starting this year.”
http://www.ayarlabs.com
What’s hot at OFC22? Ayar Labs on Optical I/O
There is a lot of discussion about optical I/O and the challenge of getting photonics integrated much closer to compute units, says Mark Wade, co-founder and CTO, Ayar Labs.Last year, Ayar Labs demonstrated its end-to-end, DWDM micro-ring solution for optical I/O. This year, it’s clear that big parts of the industry are heading in this direction. Some highlights for the ecosystem include GlobalFoundries newly announced photonics platform, a…
What’s hot at OFC22? GlobalFoundries on Co-packaged optics
The proof-point for co-packaged optics are here, says Anthony Yu, VP of Computing and Wired Infrastructure, GlobalFoundries. Yu discusses GlobalFoundries’ newly unveiled next generation silicon photonics platform and active design wins with major customers, including collaborations with Broadcom, Cisco Systems, Marvell, NVIDIA, Ayar Labs, Lightmatter, PsiQuantum, Ranovus and Xanadu.The Consortium for Onboard Optics (COBO) has been instrumental…
Lumentum and Ayar Labs target external light sources for CPO
Lumentum and Ayar Labs announced a strategic collaboration agreement to deliver CW-WDM MSA compliant external laser sources in high volume. “Co-packaged optics to replace traditional copper interconnects is a massive new market opportunity broadly recognized by the industry and one that Lumentum is well-positioned to address with our proven laser technologies and manufacturing scale,” said Walter Jankovic, Senior Vice President and General Manager…
GlobalFoundries unveils next gen silicon photonics platform
GlobalFoundries unveiled its next generation silicon photonics platform and active design wins with major customers, including collaborations with Broadcom, Cisco Systems, Marvell, NVIDIA, Ayar Labs, Lightmatter, PsiQuantum, Ranovus and Xanadu. The platform enables a high level of integration onto a photonics integrated circuit (PIC). It also supports innovative packaging solutions, such as the passive attachment for larger fiber arrays, support…
