Quintessent raises $11.5M
Seed funding will help accelerate the development of novel optical interconnects
Quintessent, a spin-out from John Bowers’ photonics research group at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), has closed on just over $11.5 million in a Seed funding round.
The company is raising the money to accelerate its development of optical interconnect technology based on heterogeneous silicon photonics and quantum dot laser technology.
Alan Liu, CEO and co-founder of Quintessent said:.“This new funding allows us to grow our team and accelerate the development of highly scalable and highly reliable optical interconnects that transcend the scaling limitations of incumbent solutions, built on top of a unique technology stack including our multi-wavelength comb laser.”
Osage University Partners (OUP) led the round along with new investors including M Ventures, and joining existing investors Sierra Ventures, Foothill Ventures, and Entrada Ventures.
“Novel chip-scale laser architectures have rarely been the focus of today’s photonics companies because the industry is still so nascent and focused in on engineered solutions. But at OUP, as we observed various AI. and computing hardware companies push the limits of bandwidth and packaging with optical systems, we found they were all challenged by the scaling and cost of their optical laser source,” said Manny Stockman, a Partner at OUP who will be joining Quintessent’s Board of Directors. “Quintessent’s plans to productise interconnect solutions powered by multi-wavelength quantum dot comb lasers may become one of the most critical product developments in photonics at just the right time to intercept the surging demand for optical connectivity at the largest computing corporations in the world.”
