LightSolver raises $13.66M to build a laser-powered supercomputer
What's the deal? LightSolverDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Tel Aviv-based laser computing startup, has raised €12.5 million ($13.66 million) in an early-stage round. The financing combines €2.5 million in grants and €10 million in equity, with backing from the EIC Fund, Angular VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Entrée Capital, IBI Tech FundDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and TAL VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
What's the endgame? Founded in 2020 by Ruti Ben-Shlomi and Chene Tradonsky, LightSolver is building a pure laser-based processing unit (LPU) it says can surpass supercomputers and quantum machines. The device uses all-optical linked lasers to compute without electronics, running at room temperature in a package as small as a desktop computer.
What's the money for? LightSolver plans to commercialise its platform and scale up in the high-performance computing (HPC) market. Its technology targets computer-assisted engineering, bioscience calculations, and complex optimisation problems.
The company frames its LPU as an energy-efficient alternative to power-hungry rivals. "Our laser-based processor can tackle large and complex computations faster than GPUs," said chief executive officer Ben-Shlomi. She added that it is "much less environmentally demanding than quantum computers, requiring no vacuum or ultracold temperatures which means that it can live in a data center."
Why now? Ben-Shlomi points to soaring energy use as the driver. "The amount of energy consumed by computing globally has been growing exponentially and is becoming unsustainable," she said, arguing the industry needs "a new computing paradigm."
The signal: The round sits in the top 10% of all early VC deals in enterprise software by size, a marker of investor appetite for alternatives to conventional and quantum computing. LightSolver's bet is that light, not electronics or cryogenics, can cut both the cost and carbon footprint of heavy computation.
Read more: startuprise.org
Image credit: LightSolver
