Converge Digest · Hot Start-ups

Optical Hot Start-ups

The emerging companies our editorial team is tracking most closely — ordered by how hot we judge them right now. Rankings shift as funding, products and customers become public.

24start-ups tracked

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24 of 24

Ayar Labs

San Jose, California, USA Mark Wade

Co-packaged optics; optical I/O chiplets; external laser sources

Lightmatter

Mountain View, California, USA Nick Harris

3D co-packaged optics; photonic interposers; optical chiplets

HyperLight

Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA Mian Zhang

Thin-film lithium niobate modulators and photonic integrated circuits

Salience Labs

Oxford, England, UK Vaysh Kewada

Integrated silicon-photonic optical circuit switching

Xscape Photonics

Santa Clara, California, USA Vivek Raghunathan

Multi-wavelength optical I/O and silicon-photonic interconnect

RANOVUS

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada Hamid Arabzadeh

CPO optical engines; quantum-dot lasers; silicon photonics

Quintessent

Santa Barbara, California, USA Alan Liu

Multi-wavelength quantum-dot lasers and optical connectivity

Enlightra

Lausanne, Switzerland John Jost and Maxim Karpov (Co-CEOs)

Chip-scale optical frequency combs and multi-wavelength laser sources

Lightium

Schlieren, Zurich, Switzerland Amir Ghadimi

Open-access 200 mm TFLN PIC foundry and design services

Lumiphase

Stäfa, Zurich, Switzerland Not publicly confirmed

Barium-titanate-enhanced silicon-photonic modulators and engines

Polariton Technologies

Rüschlikon, Zurich, Switzerland Claudia Hoessbacher

Plasmonic modulators for high-speed optical links

NLM Photonics

Seattle, Washington, USA Brad Booth

Organic electro-optic materials and low-voltage modulators

Teramount

Jerusalem, Israel Hesham Taha

Fiber-to-chip coupling and photonic packaging

iPronics

Valencia, Spain Daniel Pérez-López

Programmable photonics and field-programmable photonic gate arrays

Pilot Photonics

Dublin, Ireland Frank Smyth

Integrated comb lasers; tunable lasers; external laser sources for CPO

Avicena

Sunnyvale, California, USA Bardia Pezeshki

MicroLED-based short-reach optical interconnect

Lumai

Oxford, England, UK Tim Weil

Optical AI inference and photonic matrix processing

DustPhotonics

Modi'in, Israel Current CEO not verified

Silicon-photonic optical engines and chiplets

Celero Communications

Irvine, California, USA Nariman Yousefi

Coherent DSPs for AI infrastructure and scale-across links

Lucidean

Santa Barbara, California, USA James Raring

Low-overhead coherent optical links for AI data centers

Mixx Technologies

San Jose, California, USA Vivek Raghuraman

Silicon-integrated optical engines and full-stack AI interconnect

Phanofi

Kongens Lyngby, Denmark Hitesh Kumar Sahoo

High-bandwidth photonic interconnects using fewer lasers and controls

PhotonicX AI

Not publicly disclosed Not publicly disclosed

Emerging photonic AI interconnect technology; details undisclosed

Retym

California, USA (city not publicly confirmed) Sachin Gandhi

Coherent DSP semiconductors for AI and cloud optical connectivity

Know a company that belongs on this list — or corrections to an entry? Tips are welcome.