Liquid Instruments gains $50 M new funding from Keysight and Australia’s Reconstruction Fund…

Liquid Instruments, a developer of software-defined test solutions, has closed $50 million of Series C funding, co-led by Keysight Technologies and the Australian Government’s National Reconstruction Fund Corp.  Besides investing, Keysight will form a commercial arrangement with Liquid to position the partners to accelerate what they call “a new class of AI-driven instrumentation”.

Liquid consolidates multiple instruments into a single reconfigurable platform in which users can create and deploy their own custom measurement solutions. The company states: “What once took months, can now be achieved in minutes, dramatically expanding access to advanced measurement capabilities.”

“Keysight has long set the standard for precision, innovation, and trust in its solutions for the most complex engineering challenges, and its investment is a strong validation of our approach,” said Daniel Shaddock, CEO and co-founder of Liquid. “As systems grow more complex, our users need more flexible, AI-driven tools, and this new partnership with Keysight will accelerate that shift.”

“The industry is shifting toward software-first and AI-enabled architectures,” said Joaquin Torrecilla, VP Software Transformation at Keysight. “Liquid Instruments extends this by using software and AI to directly shape hardware behavior, creating more adaptable instrumentation.”

The participation of the NRFC highlights its role in supporting Australian technology companies that are scaling globally in critical technology sectors. “Liquid Instruments exemplifies the kind of high-impact innovation that strengthens sovereign capability while competing on the world stage,” said Mary Manning, CIO at the NRFC.

“Advances in instrumentation are central to scientific discovery,” said Brian Schmidt, Nobel Laureate and Liquid board member. “More adaptable and accessible measurement technologies enable researchers and engineers to explore problems that were previously out of reach, accelerating progress across both fundamental science and applied engineering.”

OpenLight secures $50 M in Series A-1 Funding to drive deployment of its photonics

OpenLight, a developer of custom Photonic Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (PASIC) design based on its silicon photonics process, has also raised an additional $50 million in a Series A-1 round, taking the company’s total funding so far to $84 million.

The company stated that this financing: “reflects growing commercial momentum and accelerating customer adoption across AI infrastructure, automotive and industrial sensing, medical and quantum computing applications.”

The oversubscribed round was led by Matter Venture Partners, with participation from new investors, Acclimate Ventures and Catapult Ventures, alongside existing investors, Xora Innovation, Capricorn Investment Group, Mayfield, and New Legacy.

Wen Hsieh, Founding Managing Partner at Matter, commented, “Optical technology is critical to the future scaling of data centers and AI infrastructure. We believe OpenLight’s heterogeneous integrated silicon photonics platform will be the core ingredient to this worldwide global expansion of optical connectivity where power and bandwidth matter.”

Integration of InP and SiPh

OpenLight’s process design kit, based on the heterogeneous integration of indium phosphide and silicon photonics, provides users with a library of passive and active components including lasers, modulators, amplifiers, and detectors. Validated at Tower Semiconductor, its PDK ensures designs are production-ready from day one.

Users can thus develop customized PASICs that simplify advanced chip design and accelerate time to market, says Openlight. Adam Carter, President and CEO, said, “Today, more than 25 companies use our PDK to design and fabricate PASICs across a broad range of applications. We hold over 410 patents covering the PDK and the manufacture of heterogeneously integrated III-V photonics.”

“This oversubscribed funding round adds sophisticated investor partners who will enable us to accelerate our strategic roadmap, expand worldwide sales and technical support, and bring heterogeneous photonic integrated circuits to global markets at scale,” said Carter.

The new funding will further accelerate the expansion of OpenLight’s PDK library of active and passive photonics components — including its leading-edge 400G modulator and indium phosphide heterogeneously integrated on-chip laser technology.

The company will also ramp up development of standards-based reference photonic integrated circuits at 1.6T and 3.2T, delivering flexible and advanced component design libraries.