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- Neurophos
Neurophos Funding, Investors & Competitors
Neurophos has raised $126M across 4 funding rounds, most recently a $110M Series A in January 2026.
Last Neurophos funding round
$110M
Series A · Jan 2026
Cumulative funding Neurophos raised
$126M
across 4 funding rounds
Key investors in Neurophos
Gaingels
Mana Ventures
Trajectory Ventures
Gates Frontier Fund
Alumni Ventures
M12
DNX Ventures
Space Capital
About Neurophos
Neurophos harnesses metamaterials research to deliver computational power mimicking human brain efficiency to AI systems. The chips enable analog processing for energy-efficient AI inference. Founded in 2015 and Rochester, New York-headquartered, Neurophos collaborates with DARPA on photonic computing projects.
Founded
2020
HQ
Website
Status
Privately held
Customer focus
B2B
Revenue model
Product sales
Neurophos Funding History
Neurophos has raised a total of $126M across 4 funding rounds.
Neurophos' first fundraising round was a $7M seed round in October 2023. The most recent completed round was a $110M Series A in January 2026.
Neurophos funding rounds
| Date | Stage | Investors | Raised | Deal Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 2026 | Series A | Gates Frontier Fund (lead); Wonderstone Ventures; Space Capital; DNX Ventures; Alumni Ventures; Trajectory Ventures; Silicon Catalyst Ventures; M12; Tectonic Ventures; Gaingels; Mana Ventures; Carbon Direct Capital | $110M | Neurophos, an Austin, Texas-based startup, develops photonic AI chip technology using metamaterial optical modulators to enable energy-efficient, high-performance AI inference in data centers. The company raised an oversubscribed $110 million Series A round on January 22, 2026, led by Gates Frontier Fund, with participation from M12 (Microsoft’s venture fund), Carbon Direct Capital, Aramco Ventures, Bosch Ventures, Tectonic Ventures, Space Capital, and others, bringing total funding to $118 million. The investors match the query's list, including Alumni Ventures, DNX Ventures, Gaingels, Mana Ventures, Silicon Catalyst Ventures, Trajectory Ventures, and Wonderstone Ventures among the 'others'. Cooley advised Neurophos on the deal. The funding will accelerate delivery of Neurophos’ first integrated photonic compute system, including datacenter-ready optical processing unit (OPU) modules, a full software stack, and early-access developer hardware. Neurophos claims its metasurface-based chips are 10,000 times smaller than traditional optical transistors, enabling thousands of units per chip for massive optical parallelism. Performance claims include 56 GHz operation, 235 Peta Operations per Second (POPS), and 675 watts consumption, outperforming Nvidia’s B200 GPU (9 POPS at 1,000 watts). The company has signed multiple unnamed customers, with interest from Microsoft, and plans initial evaluation hardware in 2026, commercial systems in 2028. Neurophos is expanding its Austin headquarters and opening a San Francisco engineering site to meet early customer demand. The technology targets AI inference workloads amid rising energy costs and compute scaling challenges, positioning against Nvidia-dominated silicon GPUs and photonic competitors like Lightmatter. Prior to this round, Neurophos raised $7.2 million in a seed round in December 2023 to develop metamaterial-based optical AI chips. |
| Dec 2025 | Undisclosed stage | Gaingels | $2M | Neurophos develops photonic AI chip technology, focusing on optical processing units (OPUs) for exaflop-scale AI compute that outperforms Nvidia GPUs in performance per watt. The company raised $110 million in an oversubscribed Series A round on January 22, 2026, led by Gates Frontier with participation from M12 (Microsoft’s venture fund), Carbon Direct Capital, Aramco Ventures, Bosch Ventures, Tectonic Ventures, Space Capital, Gaingels, and others, bringing total funding to $118 million. Gaingels participated as one of multiple additional investors. The funding accelerates delivery of Neurophos’ first integrated photonic compute system, including datacenter-ready OPU modules, a full software stack, and early-access developer hardware. Neurophos is expanding its Austin headquarters and opening a San Francisco engineering site to meet customer demand. The company claims its OPU chip runs at 56 GHz, delivering 235 Peta Operations per Second (POPS) at 675 watts, compared to Nvidia’s B200 at 9 POPS and 1,000 watts. Neurophos has signed multiple customers and anticipates first chips by mid-2028 in a market dominated by Nvidia with competitors like Lightmatter. |
| Dec 2023 | Seed | Gates Frontier Fund (lead); MetaVC Partners; AdAstral Funds; Mana Ventures | $7M | - |
| Oct 2023 | Seed | Trajectory Ventures; Gaingels | $7M | Neurophos, a Duke University spinout developing metamaterial-based optical AI inference chips for data centers, raised a $7.2 million seed round on December 14, 2023. The funding, led by Gates Frontier and supported by MetaVC Partners, Mana Ventures, and others, enables production of a proprietary metasurface tensor core processor and hiring engineers in Austin, Texas. The company joined Silicon Catalyst incubator to accelerate from prototype to volume production. Neurophos leverages metamaterials IP from MetaVC and research by Duke's Professor David R. Smith for energy-efficient, super-fast photonic AI chips addressing silicon limitations in AI compute. CTO Tom Driscoll previously founded Echodyne, a metamaterials-based radar company. In January 2026, Neurophos raised an oversubscribed $110 million Series A led by Gates Frontier with participation from M12 (Microsoft), Aramco Ventures, Bosch Ventures, and others including Gaingels, bringing total funding to $118 million. The Series A funds delivery of datacenter-ready OPU modules, software stack, and developer hardware, with expansion to San Francisco. |
Who has invested in Neurophos?
14 investors have backed Neurophos across its funding rounds, including Gaingels, Mana Ventures, Trajectory Ventures, Gates Frontier Fund, Alumni Ventures and M12.
Lead investors include Gates Frontier Fund.
Neurophos Investors
| Investor | HQ | Rounds | Role | First check |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Participant | Oct 2023 | ||
| 2 | Participant | Oct 2023 | ||
| 2 | Lead | Dec 2023 | ||
| 2 | Participant | Dec 2023 | ||
| 1 | Participant | Dec 2023 | ||
| 1 | Participant | Jan 2026 | ||
| 1 | Participant | Jan 2026 | ||
| 1 | Participant | Jan 2026 | ||
| 1 | Participant | Jan 2026 | ||
| 1 | Participant | Jan 2026 | ||
| 1 | Participant | Jan 2026 | ||
| 1 | Participant | Dec 2023 | ||
This data is available for Pro users. Sign up to see all 14 Neurophos investors. Start Free Trial | ||||
Benchmark 350K+ Funding Rounds and Disclosed VC Valuation Multiples
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Start Free TrialNeurophos Competitors
Neurophos competitors include listed companies like UBtech Robotics, NVIDIA, Micron and SK Hynix, and private ones like Neuralink and Figure.
| Company | HQ | Status | Revenue | EBITDA | Valuation | Revenue Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Private | - | - | $9B | - | ||
| Publicly listed | $298M | ($108M) | $5.1B | 9.5x | ||
| Publicly listed | $216B | $142B | $5.3T | 15.6x | ||
| Publicly listed | $37B | $18B | $1.1T | 8.0x | ||
| Publicly listed | $71B | $47B | $902B | 4.3x | ||
| Private | - | - | $39B | - |
Neurophos Public Comps
Neurophos is still privately-owned, but its public comps include NVIDIA, TSMC, Broadcom, Tesla, Micron, SK Hynix, AMD, ASML, CXMT and Dell.
| Last FY | EV/Revenue | EV/EBITDA | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | EBITDA | Last FY | LTM | 2027E | Last FY | LTM | 2027E | |
| $216B | $142B | 24.4x | 15.6x | 37.1x | 23.8x | |||
| $120B | $83B | 15.9x | 12.1x | 22.9x | 16.6x | |||
| $64B | $34B | 26.5x | 16.8x | 49.3x | 24.7x | |||
| $95B | $10B | 15.0x | 13.8x | 140.8x | 97.4x | |||
| $37B | $18B | 29.0x | 8.0x | 60.3x | 9.6x | |||
| $71B | $47B | 12.1x | 4.3x | 18.1x | 5.3x | |||
| $35B | $7.1B | 25.4x | 19.0x | 124.8x | 75.6x | |||
| $38B | $14B | 16.5x | 13.3x | 43.7x | 31.7x | |||
This data is available for Pro users. Sign up to see all Neurophos competitors and their valuation data. Start Free Trial | ||||||||
Common questions about Neurophos
| When was Neurophos founded? | Neurophos was founded in 2020. |
| Where is Neurophos headquartered? | Neurophos is headquartered in Austin, TX, United States. |
| Is Neurophos publicly listed? | No, Neurophos is a private, VC-backed company. |
| How much funding has Neurophos raised? | Neurophos has raised $126M across 4 funding rounds. |
| What was Neurophos' last funding round? | Neurophos' last funding round was a $110M Series A in January 2026, led by Gates Frontier Fund. |
| Who are Neurophos' investors? | Neurophos' investors include Gaingels, Trajectory Ventures, Gates Frontier Fund, Mana Ventures, MetaVC Partners, Wonderstone Ventures, Space Capital, DNX Ventures, Alumni Ventures, Silicon Catalyst Ventures and 4 others. |
| Which companies are comparable to Neurophos? | Companies comparable to Neurophos include Neuralink, UBtech Robotics, NVIDIA, Micron, SK Hynix and Figure. |
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