Photon Bridge, an Eindhoven company that develops laser sources for optical connections in AI data centres, has raised €10m (about $11.2m). It announced the funding on 21 October 2026.
Two new investors, Amadeus APEX Technology Fund and 360 Capital, co-led the round. The existing backers Innovation Industries, Faber and the Brabant Development Agency (BOM) increased their investment, the company said. Tech.eu also reported the raise.
Neither the company's announcement nor Tech.eu named a stage for the round. It is listed here as a Series A because it follows an earlier seed round. No valuation was disclosed.
“The industry will soon need millions of these laser sources every year.”Paul Marchal, CEO, Photon Bridge
What Photon Bridge does
AI clusters are growing from thousands to hundreds of thousands of processors, and moving data between those chips has become a limit on performance. One response is co-packaged optics, which puts optical connections next to the processors. That approach needs far more lasers than a supply chain built around telecom volumes can produce, the company argues.
Rather than making a small number of ever more powerful lasers, Photon Bridge combines the light of many lower-power semiconductor lasers into one source. Because each laser runs at a lower power density, it is less sensitive to manufacturing defects, which the company says improves yield. Its platform aims for up to 40 mW of optical power per wavelength per fibre and a high number of wavelengths, and is designed to be produced at several indium phosphide (InP) foundries rather than one.
Ion Hauer, an investment partner at APEX Ventures, said in the release that each new wave of computing creates fresh bottlenecks in the supply chain and that lasers are the next one. Cesare Maifredi, a partner at 360 Capital, said manufacturing yield becomes central once production reaches millions of units a year.
The market it is aiming at
The company cited a forecast from the research firm Omdia that more than 20 million AI accelerators for data centres will ship each year by 2028. It also pointed to Goldman Sachs Research, which expects the addressable market for optical networking to grow ninefold to $154bn by 2028. Both figures come from the company's announcement.
Chief executive Paul Marchal said that putting optics closer to compute creates a new manufacturing problem, and that Photon Bridge moves the scaling challenge into the design of the system rather than into individual lasers.
What the money is for
Photon Bridge said the money will speed up product development and customer qualification, and pay for a larger team in Eindhoven as it moves towards selling its product. It plans to deliver first samples in 2027 and to prepare for volume manufacturing from 2028.
In a July 2026 profile, the Dutch outlet IO+ reported that the company had built packaged laser prototypes, which co-founder Rui Santos described as more than five times better than what is available on the market, and that it planned to send samples to lead customers later that year. IO+ also reported that Photon Bridge won a G&A Award in 2026, given each year to ten young companies in the Brainport region around Eindhoven.
The funding so far
According to its website, Photon Bridge was founded in Eindhoven in 2020 by Rui Santos and Xaveer Leijtens. IO+ said the company has its roots at Eindhoven University of Technology. Santos is now chief technology officer, and Marchal leads the company as chief executive.
In January 2025, Photonics Online reported that Photon IP, a company co-founded by Santos in 2020, raised a €4.75m (about $5.3m) seed round led by Innovation Industries, with Faber and BOM taking part. The same report said Vigo Ventures had made an initial investment in 2021 and that the company had received more than €2m (about $2.2m) in grant support from the European Innovation Council.
The company has not disclosed its headcount or its total funding.
Company website: photonbridge.com