Morphotonics raises €40M for waveguide and data center optics — SkimNews
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- Morphotonics raised €40 million to scale production and push into optical components for data centers, with backing from 3M Ventures, Innovation Industries, BOM, Invest-NL, the European Innovation Council Fund, Dutch family office Ernij Next, and the European Investment Bank.
- Morphotonics' nanoimprint lithography (NIL) process creates a reusable stamp applied to photosensitive materials to produce waveguide displays used in the Meta Ray-Ban Display, Even Reality, and Magic Leap smart glasses.
- Morphotonics more than doubled its headcount to 60 employees from roughly 30 in September 2024, when CEO Hugo Da Silva joined, and expects staffing to stabilize at 70 to 75 people.
- Morphotonics' next machine, currently being built, will be capable of producing more than 6 million waveguides a year and is expected to begin shipping early next year.
- Morphotonics is expanding into co-packaged optics for data centers that use Photonic Integrated Circuits — chips that move data with light instead of electricity — though the company has not yet shipped machines in this category and said customers have validated the technology.
- Morphotonics derives roughly 90% of revenue from hardware across 10 to 15 systems deployed globally and targets 50 deployments within two to three years, with manufacturing teams in China, Taiwan, South Korea, and the U.S.
- China's smart glasses market doubled in the first eight months of this year, and IDC projects global shipments of smart glasses with displays will reach 12.2 million by 2030.
Why it matters: Morphotonics is positioning across two converging optics frontiers — AR smart glasses, where IDC forecasts 12.2 million display-equipped shipments by 2030, and co-packaged optics for data centers transitioning to photonic chips. The €40M round and a new machine capable of producing more than 6 million waveguides annually give the 60-person Dutch firm the runway to scale from 10-15 deployed systems today to a targeted 50 within two to three years.
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