NCodin receives 16 million euros in financing to help move towards large-scale industrialization

NcodiN, a cutting-edge technology focused on integrating nanolaser optical intermediate layer technology, has recently successfully completed a seed round of over subscribed financing with a total amount of 16 million euros (approximately 18.4 million US dollars). This round of funds will mainly be used to promote the company's transition from technology research and development to industrialization, including product development, introduction of key engineering talents to support the mass production of technology in the pilot scale 300mm CMOS wafer production line, and actively expanding supply chain and customer cooperation relationships.

The equity round was led by MIG Capital, with participation from Maverick Silicon, PhotonVentures, and Verve Ventures, alongside continued support from existing backers Elaia, Earlybird, and OVNI.

NcodiN is developing NConnect, which it describes as “a new generation of photonic interposers designed to overcome the copper wall” — meaning the performance and energy limits of electrical interconnects that constrain AI systems. At its core is what NCodiN says is “the world’s smallest laser”, enabling dense integration on silicon and unprecedented scalability without disrupting existing processor architectures.

Co-founders of NcodiN: Fabrice Raineri, Bruno Garbin, and Francesco Manegatti

This design allows chipmakers to pack supercomputer-level power into a single processor, paving the way for faster, more efficient AI hardware. This fundraising, states the firm, “will accelerate industrialization of the platform, including an industrial pilot to demonstrate compatibility with advanced packaging techniques.”

Establishing Silicon Valley presence

With this round, NcodiN will also establish a Silicon Valley presence, expand its R&D capacity, and scale its team in preparation for large-scale manufacturing partnerships. “This funding marks a pivotal milestone for NcodiN,” said Francesco Manegatti, CEO and Co-founder.

“We are delivering the missing piece for the industry’s most pressing challenge: enabling extremely high memory bandwidth to power the AI factories of tomorrow. Our technology unlocks wafer-scale superchips by providing the most energy-efficient interconnects for networking across tens of chiplets. As new generations of GPUs and AI accelerators emerge to keep pace with rapidly evolving GenAI algorithms, NcodiN is laying the photonic foundation that makes them possible,” Manegatti said.

Josh Miner, of investor Maverick Silicon, commented, “Memory bandwidth has become a defining bottleneck in AI, with copper interconnects struggling to deliver the reach and efficiency required for next-generation systems. NcodiN’s photonic interposers unlock memory bandwidth and capacity beyond copper’s limits. We are excited to support NcodiN as they enable architectures that will define the future of AI hardware.”

Over the past 18 months, NcodiN says it has “earned broad industry recognition for its vision and breakthrough work addressing AI’s interconnect bottlenecks”. The company has demonstrated proof-of-concept nanolasers with record energy efficiency below 0.1 pJ/bit, integrated nanodetectors, and full optical links, all on silicon. In parallel, the company established an independent cleanroom that now serves as a hub for rapid prototyping and joint development with industry partners.

To strengthen its foundation, NcodiN has expanded its network of strategic advisors, welcoming, among others, Eli Yablonovitch, Gus Yeung and Peter de Dobbelaere. Yablonovitch is a pioneer of photonic crystals, and cofounder of Luxtera, Ethertronics, Luminescent, and Alta Devices.

Yeung previously served as General Manager at ARM, where he spent almost 20 years helping the company grow and establishing ARM as the reference design platform for today’s CPUs. He also served as CTO at Intel Foundry Services, driving the organizational and technological transformation required to serve world-class external customers. de Dobbelaere is a seasoned Silicon Photonics engineer, who played a central role in Luxtera’s rise as the first major success story in this industry.

“NcodiN is addressing the next big opportunity in Silicon Photonics, the Silicon Photonic Interposer, which permits high-bandwidth communication in a multi-chip system, particularly for AI and Machine Learning. To do this, they embed high-performance nanolasers in silicon, thereby combining physics elegance with manufacturability. This has the likelihood of revolutionizing all future large scale cyber systems,” said Yablonovitch, who is also Professor in the Graduate School, UC Berkeley.

Dr. Oliver Kahl, Principal at main investor MIG Capital, said, “NcodiN is working at the center of the AI infrastructure market, a sector experiencing rapid, significant growth driven by the surging demand for generative AI, the proliferation of big data, advancements in specialized hardware like GPUs, and the widespread adoption of cloud computing.”

Source: optics.org