Photonic computing company developing optical interconnects and accelerators for large-scale AI data centers. Uses silicon photonics to move data between chips with higher bandwidth and lower energy than traditional electronic interconnects. Products include the Passage platform (3D-stacked photonic interposers, co-packaged optics, high-radix interconnects) and the Envise photonic processor (performs matrix operations using light).
founded 2017 Updated 2026-09-11· researched 2026-09-11· next review 2026-10-11· listed 2026-09-11 ⚠ research overdue — re-review queued
AI Revenue Exposure
Directly benefits from AI infrastructure spending: its photonic interconnects and accelerators address the bandwidth, energy, and scaling bottlenecks in multi-rack AI data centers, serving hyperscale customers training large neural networks.
Why it matters to AI
Lightmatter operates within the AI industrial ecosystem across
compute, semiconductors, networking, optics, data centers, ai infrastructure software. Its role sits
and upstream of 14 dependencies.
Lightmatter is building the world's first photonic computing platform, reducing the carbon footprint and operating cost of data centers while powering advanced AI.
Passage aims to integrate with maximum-sized chips, potentially approaching wafer scale, to create unified systems treating entire data centers as single high-power computers.
Lightmatter's major investors include GV (Google Ventures), Viking Global Investors, T. Rowe Price Associates, Fidelity, Matrix Partners, and Spark Capital.
Lightmatter's funding history: Series D (Oct 2024, $400M), Series C-2 (Dec 2023, $155M), Series C (Mar 2023, $153M), Series A-1 (Feb 2019, $22M), Series A (Dec 2017, $11M). Total raised: $822.48M.
Additional investors include Aliya Capital Partners, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Lockheed Martin Investment Co., SIP Global Partners, Sequoia Capital, and Trajectory Ventures.