Scintil Photonics secures investment boost from Applied Ventures and ITIC
Additional funding and support from the Applied Ventures ITIC Innovation Fund, L.P., will enable fabless silicon photonics company to expand global sourcing and accelerate market deployment in Americas and Asia-Pacific
Grenoble, France, September 6, 2022 – Scintil Photonics, a supplier of advanced silicon photonic integrated circuits with monolithically integrated lasers and optical amplifiers, today announces it has secured additional investment that completes its second round of funding, by welcoming Applied Ventures ITIC Innovation Fund, L.P., a fund jointly created by Applied Ventures, LLC and ITIC-Taiwan (Industrial Technology Investment Corporation). Robert Bosch Venture Capital (RBVC) led the original round in June 2022,
with support from historic investors Innovacom, Supernova Invest and Bpifrance through its Digital Venture fund. With this new investment, the company’s total funding has reached €19M ($19M).
Scintil Photonics’ IC solutions aim to significantly enhance traditional high-speed optical communications from rack-to-rack to chip interconnections. The company’s III-V Augmented Silicon Photonic Integrated Circuit (ASPIC) is a single-chip solution consisting of advanced silicon photonic circuits made from standard silicon photonics processes available at CMOS commercial foundries. The solution features III-V optical amplifiers and lasers integrated on the backside of advanced silicon photonic circuits. This unique all-in
one integration enables ultra-high-speed communications, due to high parallelization and higher bit rates, for example from 800 Gbit to 3,200 Gbit/sec., thereby helping the multi billion-dollar electronics industry overcome the slowing of Moore’s Law with the integration of very high-speed optical communications.
The company will use the additional funds to improve its global industrialization footprint and speed up the commercialization of its products in the Americas and Asia-Pacific.
“Scintil Photonics is very happy to welcome Applied Ventures and ITIC. By teaming with such strong semiconductor industry players we can access the very robust industrial ecosystem in the Americas and Asia-Pacific. Their support will also bring great opportunities to deploy products to customers in those regions,” said Sylvie Menezo, president and CEO of Scintil Photonics.
“We believe that silicon photonics-based optical chips with integrated lasers represent a major new opportunity in the data center, High Performance Computing (HPC), cloud systems and telecom markets. Scintil is a great example of our strategy to invest in the
Materials to Systems™ stack. We are excited to be working with its team in advancing the technology with key market leaders in the HPC space,” said Anand Kamannavar, vice president and global head of Applied Ventures.
“We are delighted to be part of this round of investment in Scintil Photonics as it presents a huge opportunity for next phase integration of very high-performance systems in datacenter and cloud computing. This investment illustrates our commitment to supporting
the most promising technologies worldwide,” said Michel Chu, president and CEO of ITIC (Industrial Technology Investment Corporation) in Taiwan.
About Applied Ventures
Applied Ventures, LLC, the venture capital arm of Applied Materials, invests globally in technology companies across the Materials to Systems™ stack that have the potential to deliver high growth and exceptional returns. Its investments help develop technologies and markets that provide natural extensions to Applied Materials’ core business and stimulate the growth of applications for semiconductors, displays and related products and services. Learn more at www.appliedventures.com
About ITIC
ITIC Taiwan is the venture capital arm of the renowned R&D consortium – the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) in Taiwan. Since its creation in 1979, ITIC has invested over $400 million across virtually all stages, sectors and time zones. Companies we have nurtured have gone on to define entire industries and boast a combined market cap of well over $200 billion.
About Scintil Photonics
Scintil Photonics develops and markets Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs): integrated laser arrays, multiples of 800 Gbit/sec transmitters and receivers, tunable transmitters, and receivers, as well as optical I/O for near chip and chip-chip communication. Its circuits are fabricated on a proprietary III/V-Augmented silicon photonics technology manufactured in a multi-customer silicon foundry. For accelerated adoption, the company also delivers the control electronics and reference package implementations. Based in Grenoble, France, and Toronto, Canada, Scintil is currently taking its innovative product to industrial level as it gears up for mass production.