Shanghai-based Lightelligence has raised over 1.5 billion yuan ($210 million) in a Series C round of financing to fuel the commercialisation of its optical computing solutions.
The Series C round attracted the participation of the state-owned telecom major China Mobile and state capital investors, including Shanghai State-Owned Capital Investment and CRHC Fund, Lightelligence announced on Thursday.
Shanghai-based mix-ownership venture capital (VC) firm Pudong Innovation Investment invested in the deal, alongside Lightelligence’s existing shareholders like CAS Star, Yijing Capital, and an Internet tech giant.
Lightelligence, founded in 2017, aims to transform the cutting-edge technology of photonics into computing solutions to greatly improve computing power and reduce energy consumption.
Led by founder and CEO Shen Yichen, a PhD in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the company focuses on the development of integrated optical computing accelerators, using photons (light) instead of electrons (electricity) to perform complex computations at high speeds and with low power consumption. This approach has the potential to overcome the limitations of traditional electronic computing and accelerate applications like artificial intelligence (AI).
“We’ve come to a critical stage of commercialising integrated photonics for computing solutions at scale,” said Shen in a company statement. “We expect 30% of global intelligent computing centres to be powered by photonic chips within the next five years.”
“Lightelligence is leveraging disruptive fundamental innovations to drive the transformation of the world’s computing infrastructures. The new financing will see us speed up the development of core technologies and the mass adoption of integrated photonics for computing solutions,” said Shen.
Baidu Ventures, the corporate venture capital (CVC) arm of Chinese search engine firm Baidu, led Lightelligence’s angel round in 2018 and in 2020, participated in its $26-million Series A round.
Its earlier backers also include MPCi, previously Matrix Partners China, CICC Capital, Vertex Ventures China, China Merchants Venture Capital Management, and FreesFund.
