Silicon photonics startup Scintil Photonics raises $4.4 million in first-round funding
French silicon photonics startup Scintil Photonics says it has raised €4 million ($4.4 million) in first-round funding. Supernova Invest, Innovacom and Bpifrance are led the round with participation by Credit Agricole Alpes Développement and endowment fund Foreis. The company says it will use the money to develop prototypes of 800-Gbps transceiver photonic circuits targeted at data center network applications.
The fabless company was founded in Grenoble in November 2018 by CEO Sylvie Menezo, previously with CEA-Leti, and Chairman Pascal Langlois, former CEO of Tronics Microsystems. The company received startup funding by winning a French government-sponsored innovation competition, called i-Lab 2018, hosted by Bpifrance. Scintil Photonics says it has developed a silicon photonics platform in which it can integrate multi-wavelength lasers. It says it has partnerships with CEA-Leti in France and the University of Toronto in Canada.
“We look forward to engaging with prospective customers and demonstrating the functionality and performance enhancements that Scintil Photonics can bring. With this first funding round, Scintil will be able to have its demonstrator and prototype circuits manufactured in commercial foundries, which will greatly accelerate our time to market,” Menezo concluded.
"We firmly believe in Scintil Photonics’ ability to implement the seamless integration of III-V semiconductor material on silicon. In particular, the collective manufacturing of lasers, reducing the cost of mass-producing fully integrated photonic circuits while improving the energy efficiency and other critical parameters, is a key differentiator in penetrating the market of data center transceivers and sensors. It matches perfectly Supernova Invest’s ambition to support game-changing Deep Tech startups,” said Christophe Desrumaux, investment director at Supernova Invest.
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Stephen Hardy is editorial director and associate publisher of Lightwave and Broadband Technology Report, part of the Lighting & Technology Group at Endeavor Business Media. Stephen is responsible for establishing and executing editorial strategy across the both brands’ websites, email newsletters, events, and other information products. He has covered the fiber-optics space for more than 20 years, and communications and technology for more than 35 years. During his tenure, Lightwave has received awards from Folio: and the American Society of Business Press Editors (ASBPE) for editorial excellence. Prior to joining Lightwave in 1997, Stephen worked for Telecommunications magazine and the Journal of Electronic Defense.
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