Ottawa-based Hyperlume has raised $12.5 million USD ($17.8 million CAD) in seed funding to commercialize its data-centre interconnection technology.
The round was led by BDC’s Deep Tech Venture Fund and ArcTern Ventures, with participation from MUUS Climate Partners, SOSV, and Intel Capital, the investment arm of American semiconductor giant Intel, with a strategic investment from LG Technology Ventures. BetaKit asked Hyperlume about the strategic nature of LG’s investment, but did not hear back by press time.
Hyperlume will use the capital to expand its product, engineering, and R&D teams.
Founded in 2022 by CEO Mohsen Asad and president and CTO Hossein Fariborzi, Hyperlume says it seeks to address connectivity bottlenecks in accelerated computing and artificial intelligence (AI) data centres with its specialized microLEDs (a type of emerging flat-panel display technology), and power circuitry.
Hyperlume claims its interconnects have 10-times the computing performance, five-times the power savings, and four times lower cost relative to traditional copper interconnects.
As their name suggests, data centre interconnects connect two or more data centres together to share and transfer data over short, medium or long distances. With the advent of AI, data centre use, and thus energy consumption, has shot up dramatically.
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“As the demand for AI grows, so do its energy requirements, placing a significant burden on traditional copper interconnects,” Intel Capital managing director Srini Ananth said in a statement. “Hyperlume’s technology effectively tackles the bottlenecks hindering optimal performance in AI and data centres, representing a significant step forward for the semiconductor industry as it supports the demands of an AI-driven future.”
According to a May 2024 report from Goldman Sachs, data centre power demand is expected to grow 160 percent by 2030 due to AI use, potentially causing data centres to account for up to four percent of overall power consumption worldwide and double their current carbon emissions. Those figures underscore an urgent need to invest in technologies like Hyperlume’s, which reduce energy consumption, Murray McCaig, managing partner at round leader ArcTern Ventures, said in a statement.
Hyperlume plans to use the proceeds of its oversubscribed seed round to accelerate the development of its tech, as well as expand its product, engineering, and research and development teams. The startup is also looking to strengthen strategic partnerships with leading cloud service providers, chip manufacturers, and AI infrastructure providers.
Feature image courtesy Hyperlume.