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17 Mar 2026
Canadian startup looking to target trimming applications in silicon photonics with mid-infrared sources.
Femtum, a Quebec City startup that has developed short-pulsed mid-infrared fiber lasers, says it has closed a round of series A financing worth $16 million.
The oversubscribed series A round, which was led by BDC Capital, will support the firm’s international expansion as it looks to accelerate adoption of its lasers in the production of silicon photonics, co-packaged optics, and other cutting-edge semiconductor devices.
Other investors include Fonds de solidarité (FTQ), Cathay Venture, i4 Capital, Boreal Ventures, Quantacet, Hamamatsu Ventures &, Eureka.
BDC Capital, which is the investment arm of the Business Development Bank of Canada, provided $6 million, motivated by what is seen as as Femtum’s unique ability to solve key challenges impacting yield, energy efficiency, and contamination in silicon photonics as production ramps to meet demand for next-generation data center infrastructure.
“Femtum’s patented fiber laser platform delivers measurable sustainability benefits and integrates directly into existing production equipment from the world’s leading semiconductor equipment manufacturers,” stated the startup.
“Its flagship laser cleaning and laser trimming solutions, designed for high-precision wafer-level processing, are already validated by Tier-1 global customers.”
Mid-infrared fiber lasers
Femtum CEO Louis-Rafaël Robichaud, who co-founded the company with CTO Simon Duval back in 2017, said in release announcing the funding round:
“This investment will enable Femtum to rapidly deploy our unique short-pulsed fiber laser platform and significantly expand our manufacturing capacity. Our objective is to establish ourselves as an essential component of the semiconductor manufacturing supply chain by delivering the requisite laser solutions for the production of future electronic and photonic devices."
Robichaud and Duval worked together on the development of the mid-infrared lasers while researchers at Université Laval’s Center of optics, photonics and laser (COPL) in Québec City, and Femtum now sells ultrashort-pulsed sources operating at 2.8 µm and 3.4 µm.
Those fiber laser systems deliver exceptional stability, beam quality, and selectivity, enabling high-precision material interaction without damaging sensitive substrates, inside a modern chip fabrication facility.
Rémi Fournier, a partner in the Sustainability Venture Fund and Climate Tech Fund at BDC Capital, said of that laser technology:
“What impressed us is how practical this is: Femtum’s technology drops into existing photonics manufacturing flows and delivers immediate return-on-investment, higher yields, less scrap, and meaningfully lower power consumption at the chip level.
Stanley Yu, assistant VP at Cathay Venture Inc., added: “This is one of those rare cases where ‘sustainability’ is not a nice-to-have - it’s the business case. Trimming can reduce chip power by 20-40 per cent, and better yields mean fewer re-runs and less wasted energy.”
“The advanced fiber laser platform from Femtum is instrumental to the emerging manufacturing processes in optical chip, silicon photonic and semiconductor advanced packaging.
“As a Venture Capital from Taiwan, we look forward to supporting Femtum in establishing its presence in Taiwan, one of the world’s most advanced semiconductor manufacturing ecosystems.”
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