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- Lightmatter
Lightmatter Revenue, Valuation, Funding & Investors
Lightmatter is valued at $4.4B as of October 2024.
Last Lightmatter valuation
$4.4B
Series D · Oct 2024
Last Lightmatter funding round
$400M
Series D · Oct 2024
Lightmatter revenue
$50M
Series C · Dec 2023
Key investors in Lightmatter
GV
Spark Capital
Matrix Partners
Viking Global Investors
SIP Global Partners
Fidelity
About Lightmatter
Lightmatter is a Boston-headquartered designer of photonic computing chips that accelerate matrix multiplications for AI inference and training using silicon photonics. The Passage interconnect links GPU clusters with optical switches, while Envise processors target data center workloads in cloud and telecom sectors.
Founded
2017
HQ
Website
Status
Privately held
Customer focus
B2B
Revenue model
Product sales
Revenue
$50M (Dec 2023)
Valuation
$4.4B (Oct 2024)
Lightmatter Valuation
Lightmatter is currently valued at $4.4B, based on its Series D in October 2024.
The $400M round was led by T. Rowe Price, with participation from Fidelity and GV.
Lightmatter's valuation has grown 138x from $32M at its Series A in February 2018 to $4.4B in October 2024, across 5 priced rounds.
Lightmatter valuation by funding round
Revenue multiple| Date | Stage | Valuation | Revenue Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2024 | Series D | $4.4B | - |
| Dec 2023 | Series C | $1.2B | 24.0x |
| May 2023 | Series C | $1.2B | - |
| Apr 2021 | Series B | $240M | - |
| Feb 2018 | Series A | $32M | - |
Lightmatter Revenue
Lightmatter's latest recorded revenue is $50M, as of its Series C in December 2023. At a $1.2B valuation, that implies a 24.0x revenue multiple.
Lightmatter revenue by funding round
| Date | Revenue * | Valuation | Revenue Multiple | Stage |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 2023 | $50M | $1.2B | 24.0x | Series C |
* Revenue (or ARR) figures are the values recorded alongside each funding round. Typically run-rate revenue at the time of the deal, or a reported LTM (last 12 months) revenue.
Lightmatter Funding History
Lightmatter has raised a total of $822M across 6 funding rounds.
Lightmatter's first fundraising round was a $11M Series A in February 2018. The most recent completed round was a $400M Series D in October 2024.
Lightmatter funding rounds
| Date | Stage | Investors | Raised | Valuation | Deal Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 2024 | Series D | T. Rowe Price (lead); Fidelity; GV | $400M | $4.4B | Lightmatter, a Boston-based photonic computing startup founded in 2017, develops chips that use light instead of electrical signals for AI computations and interconnects, addressing heat and resistance issues in traditional architectures. Its products include the Envise chip for calculations and Passage, a photonic interconnect for linking processor arrays in data centers. The company raised $400 million in a Series D round on October 16, 2024, led by T. Rowe Price Associates with participation from Fidelity Management & Research Company and GV (Google Ventures), quadrupling its prior $1.2 billion valuation from a December 2023 Series C extension to a post-money valuation of $4.4 billion and bringing total funding to $850 million. The funding will support mass deployment of Passage chips in partner data centers, team expansion to around 200 employees across North America and three continents, and scaling photonic technology for AI supercomputing. CEO Nick Harris emphasized reinventing AI infrastructure with Passage as the world's fastest photonic engine to break AI computing barriers. Investors like T. Rowe Price's Tony Wang highlighted strong demand for AI supercomputers, while GV's Erik Nordlander noted photonics as key for million-xPU data centers. Lightmatter recently appointed Nvidia veteran Simona Jankowski as CFO and added Richard Beyer and Robin Washington to its board. It follows previous raises including a $154 million round in May 2023 and $155 million extension in December 2023 achieving unicorn status. The company has offices in Mountain View, Toronto, and focuses on enabling next-gen AI models amid data center frenzy. |
| Dec 2023 | Series C | GV (lead); Viking Global Investors (lead); SIP Global Partners; AXIAL Partners; Eastward Capital Partners | $155M | $1.2B | Lightmatter is a Boston-based leader in photonic computing, developing hardware and software solutions like Passage (photonic interconnect) and Envise (AI acceleration platform) to enhance performance, efficiency, and reduce power consumption for AI and high-performance computing workloads. The company raised $155 million in a Series C-2 extension round on December 19, 2023, led by GV (formerly Google Ventures) and Viking Global Investors, with participation from existing investors including AXIAL Partners, Eastward Capital Partners, and SIP Global Partners. This round boosted Lightmatter's post-money valuation to $1.2 billion, achieving unicorn status, following a $154 million Series C in May 2023 that tripled its prior valuation, bringing total funding to over $420 million. The funding will accelerate growth amid surging demand for advanced AI compute solutions, enabling Lightmatter to double its team to around 150 employees, expand product development, and open a new office in Toronto in 2024 alongside its Boston headquarters. Photonic technologies address key bottlenecks in traditional silicon computing, such as transistor scaling limits and power challenges, positioning Lightmatter to support larger AI models from companies like Google, Meta, and OpenAI. CEO Nick Harris emphasized the role of photonics in sustaining computing progress for AI innovation. Investors highlighted Lightmatter's potential to transform AI infrastructure through silicon photonics, unlocking higher bandwidth and scalability. GV's Erik Nordlander noted the unprecedented demand for new compute solutions in generative AI. The company has not disclosed specific customers but aims to meet HPC needs from AI innovators, with products like Envise delivering up to 6.4 Tbps optical interconnect bandwidth in a 4U server blade form factor for multi-node AI systems. |
| May 2023 | Series C | Fidelity; GV; SIP Global Partners; Trajectory Ventures; Hewlett Packard Enterprise; Viking Global Investors | $154M | $1.2B | Lightmatter is a Boston-based startup developing photonics-based hardware and software solutions, including Envise for computing, Passage for interconnects, and Idiom software, to enhance performance and energy efficiency for AI and high-performance computing workloads amid rising demands from large language models. The company announced a $154 million Series C funding round on May 31, 2023, led by investors including SIP Global Partners, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Viking Global Investors, GV (Google Ventures), HPE Pathfinder, and existing investors, tripling its valuation and bringing total funding raised to over $270 million, with funds allocated to deliver photonic products to major cloud providers, semiconductor firms, and enterprises. In December 2023, Lightmatter raised an additional $155 million extension to the Series C, led by GV and Viking Global Investors, explicitly increasing the company's valuation to $1.2 billion post-money and pushing total funding past $420 million. The company reported doubling its headcount to around 150 employees and planned expansion including a new Toronto office in 2024 to meet AI-driven demand for high-performance computing. Lightmatter positions its photonic chips as superior to traditional silicon-based GPUs and TPUs for matrix computations central to AI, integrating seamlessly with PyTorch and TensorFlow. The funding supports scaling for data center deployments amid generative AI growth, with over 150 patents and active hiring in engineering and product roles. Competitive context highlights photonics as key to overcoming power consumption limits in scaling AI models, following Nvidia's market surge. |
| Apr 2021 | Series B | Viking Global Investors (lead); GV; Spark Capital; Matrix Partners; SIP Global Partners; Hewlett Packard Enterprise; SBXi; FAST — by GETTYLAB; Lockheed Martin Ventures | $80M | $240M | Lightmatter is a photonic computing company developing technologies that use light instead of electrical signals to address data bottlenecks in AI data centers, offering chips like Envise for AI workloads and Passage as an optical interconnect for processors. The company, founded in 2017 and based in Mountain View, CA (with Boston operations), specializes in 3D-stacked silicon photonics engines to improve speed, reduce cost, and lower environmental impact for AI and high-performance computing. As of recent reports, it employs around 294 people and has expanded its team significantly post-funding. The round supported growth in team and operations, doubling headcount shortly after. Subsequent rounds included a Series C extension in 2023 raising $155 million at $1.2 billion valuation led by GV and Viking Global Investors, bringing total funding over $420 million at that time, and a 2024 Series D of $400 million at $4.4 billion. Investors highlight Lightmatter's role in advancing AI innovation through photonics, competing with firms like Ayar Labs and Celestial AI in optical interconnects. |
| Feb 2019 | Series A | GV (lead); Spark Capital; Matrix Partners | $22M | - | Lightmatter is a Boston-based AI hardware startup founded in 2017 by Nicholas Harris, Darius Bunandar, and Thomas Graham, developing photonic computing chips using integrated optical technology, such as Mach-Zehnder interferometers, to create faster and more energy-efficient processors for AI workloads compared to traditional electronic systems. The company targets organizations with large cloud computing data centers and high-tech computing clusters, emphasizing advantages in throughput and power efficiency. The technology aims to address post-Moore's Law bottlenecks in neural-net computing for AI advancement. The founders met through MIT classes and won the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition judged by GV's Erik Nordlander, using the proceeds to pitch investors in Silicon Valley. In February 2019, Lightmatter announced a $22 million Series A extension led by GV (Alphabet's venture arm), with participation from Matrix Partners and Spark Capital, bringing the total Series A raise to $33 million following an initial $11 million tranche from Matrix and Spark in December 2017. GV partner Tyson Clark (also referred to as Tyler Clark) joined the board. Investors were initially skeptical about the capital-intensive photonic chip approach but were convinced after Lightmatter demonstrated early chips, including one with over a billion transistors within a year. |
| Feb 2018 | Series A | Matrix Partners (lead); Spark Capital (lead) | $11M | $32M | Lightmatter was founded in 2017 by Nicholas Harris, Darius Bunandar, and Thomas Graham to develop photonic computing solutions for data centers and AI workloads. The company's technology uses light-based processors to accelerate artificial intelligence and machine learning computations, positioning photonics as an alternative to traditional electronic chip architectures that suffer from heat dissipation and power consumption challenges. In February 2018, Lightmatter raised $11.1 million in a Series A funding round led by Matrix Partners and Spark Capital, valuing the company at $31.71 million post-money. This early funding supported the company's initial development of its photonic technology platform. Over the following years, Lightmatter achieved significant growth, reaching a $1.2 billion valuation in December 2023 following a $155 million Series C round, and subsequently raising $400 million in Series D at a $4.4 billion valuation in October 2024, demonstrating strong investor confidence in its photonics-based infrastructure solutions for next-generation AI data centers. |
Who has invested in Lightmatter?
14 investors have backed Lightmatter across its funding rounds, including GV, Spark Capital, Matrix Partners, Viking Global Investors, SIP Global Partners and Fidelity.
Lead investors include T. Rowe Price, GV, Viking Global Investors, Matrix Partners and Spark Capital.
Lightmatter Investors
| Investor | HQ | Rounds | Role | First check |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 | Lead | Feb 2019 | ||
| 3 | Lead | Feb 2018 | ||
| 3 | Lead | Feb 2018 | ||
| 3 | Participant | Apr 2021 | ||
| 3 | Lead | Apr 2021 | ||
| 2 | Participant | May 2023 | ||
| 2 | Participant | Apr 2021 | ||
| 1 | Lead | Oct 2024 | ||
| 1 | Participant | Dec 2023 | ||
| 1 | Participant | May 2023 | ||
| 1 | Participant | Apr 2021 | ||
| 1 | Participant | Dec 2023 | ||
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Benchmark 350K+ Funding Rounds and Disclosed VC Valuation Multiples
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Start Free TrialLightmatter Competitors
Lightmatter competitors include listed companies like Core Scientific and Suntak Technology, and private ones like SiFive, GTA Semiconductor, Sunrise and PsiQuantum.
| Company | HQ | Status | Revenue | EBITDA | Valuation | Revenue Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Private | $116M | - | $3.6B | - | ||
| Private | - | - | $6.3B | - | ||
| Private | - | - | $3B | - | ||
| Private | - | - | $7B | - | ||
| Publicly listed | $319M | ($211M) | $5.5B | 13.9x | ||
| Publicly listed | $1.1B | $159M | $4.4B | - |
Lightmatter Public Comps
Lightmatter is still privately-owned, but its public comps include Suntak Technology, ViTrox, Aixtron, All Winner Technology, AXT, VisEra Technologies, Kulicke & Soffa, Macnica Holdings, Accretech and Everdisplay Optronics.
| Last FY | EV/Revenue | EV/EBITDA | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | EBITDA | Last FY | LTM | 2027E | Last FY | LTM | 2027E | |
| $1.1B | $159M | 3.8x | - | 26.7x | - | |||
| $206M | $45M | 21.2x | 14.1x | 97.5x | 54.9x | |||
| $641M | $135M | 6.1x | 5.9x | 28.9x | 27.3x | |||
| $423M | $52M | 10.0x | - | 81.2x | - | |||
| $88M | ($11M) | 47.2x | 22.8x | (373.3x) | 87.7x | |||
| $281M | $118M | 14.2x | 13.0x | 33.8x | 29.3x | |||
| $654M | $15M | 5.8x | 3.4x | 258.2x | 15.4x | |||
| $7.8B | $291M | 0.6x | 0.6x | 16.8x | 13.7x | |||
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Common questions about Lightmatter
| When was Lightmatter founded? | Lightmatter was founded in 2017. |
| Where is Lightmatter headquartered? | Lightmatter is headquartered in San Francisco, CA, United States. |
| Is Lightmatter publicly listed? | No, Lightmatter is a private, VC-backed company. |
| What is Lightmatter's valuation? | Lightmatter was last valued at $4.4B in its Series D in October 2024. |
| How much funding has Lightmatter raised? | Lightmatter has raised $822M across 6 funding rounds. |
| What was Lightmatter's last funding round? | Lightmatter's last funding round was a $400M Series D in October 2024, led by T. Rowe Price. |
| Who are Lightmatter's investors? | Lightmatter's investors include GV, Spark Capital, Matrix Partners, SIP Global Partners, Viking Global Investors, Fidelity, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, T. Rowe Price, AXIAL Partners, Trajectory Ventures and 4 others. |
| What is Lightmatter's revenue? | Lightmatter's latest recorded revenue is $50M (December 2023). |
| What is Lightmatter's revenue multiple? | Lightmatter's latest valuation implies a 24.0x revenue multiple ($1.2B valuation on $50M of revenue). |
| Which companies are comparable to Lightmatter? | Companies comparable to Lightmatter include SiFive, GTA Semiconductor, Sunrise, PsiQuantum, Core Scientific and Suntak Technology. |
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