Lightmatter, a start-up developing photonic interconnect and compute products, has appointed Simona Jankowski as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Jankowski previously was vice president of investor relations and strategic finance at NVIDIA during a period of unprecedented growth for the company. Before that, she was a managing director at Goldman Sachs, where she led equity research for the hardware and communications technology sectors and managed the Global Investment Research office in San Francisco.
“Generative AI is driving unprecedented demand for a new class of extreme-scale data centers. Lightmatter has made foundational breakthroughs in photonics that enable data centers to increase in scale and performance by orders of magnitude, and with greater energy efficiency. With a generational performance lead, Lightmatter is poised to drive the data center photonics revolution,” said Jankowski. “I am thrilled to join this brilliant team of inventors, technologists, and accomplished industry executives to help scale the company for significant growth in the years ahead.”
The appointment follows Lightmatter’s $310M fundraise in 2023, which valued the company at $1.2B, and comes at a time of significant growth for the company.
- Company Focus: Lightmatter specializes in photonic computing, using light for data processing to achieve higher efficiency and lower heat production.
- Products: The company offers photonic chips like Envise for AI workloads and Passage for interconnecting processors with optical networks.
- Funding and Valuation: Lightmatter has raised approximately $420 million, achieving unicorn status with a valuation of $1.2 billion.
- Expansion Plans: Lightmatter has offices in Boston and Mountain View, California. The company plans to expand its team and open a new office in Toronto in 2024. Investors:
- Key investors include GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Viking Global Investors.