Leeds-based photonic computing company Optalysys has raised €26.4M (£23M) in a Series A extension round to speed up commercialisation of its photonic chips and support expansion into the US market. The company is developing hardware designed to overcome the performance and energy limits of traditional electronic computing.
The round was led by Northern Gritstone, with participation from imec.xpand, Lingotto Horizon, and the UK government’s National Security Strategic Investment Fund.
Advancing photonic computing beyond electronic limits
Founded in 2013 by CEO Nick New and CTO Robert Todd, Optalysys focuses on secure computing using light-based processing. The company argues that electronic systems are approaching physical and energy constraints as AI, cloud, and data-intensive workloads continue to scale.
A core focus of the company’s work is accelerating Fully Homomorphic Encryption, which allows data to be analysed while remaining encrypted. While FHE has strong security benefits, its widespread adoption has been limited by performance bottlenecks in conventional computing architectures.
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Integrating data movement and compute on a single chip
Optalysys addresses these challenges by combining silicon photonics with digital technologies to move and process data within the same chip. This approach aims to deliver higher performance while reducing the energy consumption associated with traditional data movement between processors and memory.
The company is developing a programmable, high-density computing layer intended to support demanding workloads, including generative AI, encrypted cloud services, and post-quantum cryptography.
Early deployments and commercial focus
Optalysys has already introduced its LightLocker Node servers, which it describes as dedicated hardware for always-encrypted computing use cases. These systems are currently being used in early implementations of encrypted blockchain and secure data processing applications.
The company says the new funding will help transition its technology from early deployments to broader commercial adoption.
Expanding into the US photonics ecosystem
A portion of the capital will be used to establish a stronger presence in the US, allowing Optalysys to access the photonics ecosystem and engineering talent concentrated around Silicon Valley. The company views this expansion as a key step toward positioning photonic computing as part of mainstream cloud infrastructure.
Optalysys aims to play a central role in the shift toward more secure, energy-efficient computing as demand grows for encrypted and AI-driven workloads.
