InPHRED closes $4M seed round
US-based InPHRED has completed a $4 million seed funding round to accelerate commercialisation of its patented nanoporous InP DBR technology.
The company say this will enable SWIR (short wave infrared) VCSELs for the first time at commercial scale. Funds are being deployed toward SWIR VCSEL product development, digital health prototype validation, and expansion of the company's foundry and ODM partner network across the US and Taiwan.
The company says it is is also actively developing custom solutions for Tier 1 OEM partners in AR/VR and digital health, and is seeking $20M+ in Series B follow-on capital to pursue three market segments in parallel.
The company's DBR devices are engineered with alternating dense and nanoporous layers to create refractive-index steps of up to ~40 percent (exceeding AlGaAs/GaAs contrast) on standard foundry-grown InP or GaN epi. No exotic materials or wafer fusion are required.
The technology is said to be drop-in compatible with volume manufacturing, with the porosification step a single post-epi electrochemical process added to a conventional wafer-level flow.
