HyperLight to ramp thin-film lithium niobate output with $80M funding round

HyperLight, the Cambridge, Massachusetts, startup specializing in thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN) photonic integrated circuits (PICs), says it has closed a series C round of equity finance worth $80 million.

Led by Taiwan-based fabless chip giant MediaTek, funding for the Harvard University spin-out also came from chip foundry-linked UMC Capital, Jabil, and Foxconn.

EDBI, part of SG Growth Capital, the investment platform of the Singapore Economic Development Board and Enterprise Singapore, CDIB-TEN Capital, and the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) also invested, alongside strategic investors from leading chip and networking companies.

“The financing brings together companies across the AI infrastructure value chain - including silicon ICs, foundry manufacturing, electronics manufacturing services, networking, and global infrastructure investment - reflecting broad ecosystem support for scaling TFLN photonics into production,” announced the firm.

HyperLight previously raised $37 million in September 2024, and earlier this year agreed manufacturing deals with Taiwanese foundry partners UMC and Wavetek.

Technology gap

While billions of dollars are currently being spent on more conventional photonic devices to provide high-speed interconnects for AI data centers, proponents of TFLN say that a critical technology gap remains in achieving future data transmission speeds beyond 800 Gb/s.

TFLN promises one way to solve that problem, supporting a route to data speeds of 3.2 Tb/s alongside improved power efficiency. However, the glass-like material is difficult to process and has typically been restricted to prototyping in research settings.

HyperLight CEO Mian Zhang, who founded the company while at Harvard, said: “This financing is about more than capital - it is about ecosystem alignment.

“AI infrastructure requires optical interconnects that can deliver higher bandwidth, lower power, and manufacturing scale across pluggable optics and co-packaged optics.

“HyperLight has spent years building the TFLN technology, manufacturing foundation, and ecosystem relationships required to support that transition. This round accelerates our ability to scale with customers and partners globally.”

Lane speed scaling

The firm’s “Chiplet” TFLN platform is designed to unify the requirements of short-reach data center pluggables, longer-reach coherent datacom and telecom modules, and co-packaged optics (CPO) within a single high-volume manufacturable architecture.

HyperLight is currently sampling products capable of supporting 400G-per-lane operation, alongside ultra-low optical loss that ultimately reduces power consumption as AI networks scale to higher lane speeds.

Brian Hsu, the managing director of MediaTek Innovation Fund, commented: “Next-generation AI infrastructure requires optical connectivity that enables 3.2T and beyond.

“TFLN’s combination of bandwidth and efficiency makes it a compelling technology for high-speed interconnects, and HyperLight is well positioned to support this transition.”

HyperLight says it will use the latest funding to expand manufacturing capacity and accelerate customer qualification while deepening partnerships across foundry, semiconductor, networking, and systems integration domains.

The financing comes three months after HyperLight revealed details of a strategic manufacturing partnership with foundries UMC and Wavetek to enable high-volume production of the Chiplet technology platform on both 6-inch and 8-inch diameter wafers.