Tsinghua-founded Lankun raises hundreds of millions of yuan for optical I/O
What's the deal? Lankun Microelectronics, a Chinese optical interconnect startup founded by a team from Tsinghua University, has raised hundreds of millions of yuan across two back-to-back early-stage rounds. The first was led by Longqiu CapitalDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → — whose limited partners include Ruijie NetworksDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and WUS Printed CircuitDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → — and Guanghe Venture Capital; the second was led by Guanghe Venture Capital and Longqiu Capital.
What's the endgame? Lankun will spend the money on three-dimensional opto-electronic packaging, buying wafer capacity for mass production, and building out a full optical I/O research team.
Why now? Optical interconnect funding is heating up as investors bet on fixing the connectivity bottleneck in AI data centres. Since early 2026, rival Lianxin Technology has closed a near-US$687.5M Series A and a near-US$1.38B Series A+.
What could go wrong? The sector is crowded, with competitors such as Xinguangjie also disclosing multiple rounds. Lankun's challenge is converting Tsinghua research into products that meet real customer demand.
The signal: Money is flowing to startups promising to break the interconnect limits slowing AI compute clusters — and university spinouts are among the beneficiaries.
Read more: sohu.com
Image credit: Generated with Gemini
