Photon Bridge has raised €10m in a round co-led by new investors Amadeus APEX Technology Fund and 360 Capital, with first samples due in 2027 and volume manufacturing planned from 2028.
Photon Bridge, an Eindhoven company that develops high-power, multi-wavelength laser sources for optical interconnects in AI data centres, announced the €10m raise in a press release dated 21 October 2026. The company is headquartered in Eindhoven and is building its technology around the volumes that AI infrastructure is expected to need.
The deal
Two new investors co-led the round: the Amadeus APEX Technology Fund and 360 Capital. Existing shareholders Innovation Industries, Faber and Brabant Development Agency (BOM) also increased their investment.
According to the release, APEX Ventures launched the Amadeus APEX Technology Fund in early 2023 together with Amadeus Capital Partners, and the fund invests in Seed and Series A ventures. 360 Capital, founded in 1997 and operating from Paris and Milan, reports more than €750m in assets under management and more than 75 active portfolio companies.
What the company builds
Instead of relying on a small number of ever more powerful lasers, Photon Bridge combines and multiplexes light from several lower-power semiconductor lasers. The company says lower power densities make each laser less sensitive to manufacturing defects, which improves production yield as volumes grow.
The platform is designed to deliver up to 40 mW of optical power per wavelength per fibre, and to be produced across multiple indium phosphide (InP) foundries. Photon Bridge argues that today's high-power laser supply chain was built for telecom and subsea networks, where volumes are far lower.
"The industry will soon need millions of these laser sources every year," said Paul Marchal, CEO of Photon Bridge.
The market case
The release cites an Omdia forecast that more than 20 million data-centre AI accelerators will ship annually by 2028. It also cites Goldman Sachs Research, which expects the addressable market for optical networking to grow ninefold to $154bn by 2028.
Ion Hauer, Investment Partner at APEX Ventures, described lasers as the next bottleneck further down the AI supply chain. Cesare Maifredi, Partner at 360 Capital, said manufacturing yield becomes central once production reaches millions of units a year.
What comes next
Photon Bridge will use the money to speed up product development and customer qualification. It plans to deliver its first samples in 2027 and to prepare for volume manufacturing from 2028, and it will expand its team in Eindhoven as it moves towards commercialisation.
Original source: Photon Bridge (press release), "Photon Bridge Raises €10M to Tackle AI's Emerging Laser Bottleneck"
