Intel Capital, the chip giant's venture capital arm is among several investors in a fully-subscribed Series C fund raise that has landed Auckland-based Quantifi Photonics $24 million.
Formerly known as Coherent Solutions, Quanitifi Photonics develops high-density photonics test and measurement instruments, for the upcoming 800 gigabit/s network technologies.
Quantifi Photonics plans to offer fully integrated test systems for optical transceivers, silicon photonics, and co-packaged optical devices that are currently being developed and entering mass production.
Manufacturers of next-generation optical transceivers are looking to produce co-packaged optical devices with an extremely high number of parallel channels, in order to transmit data at speeds of up to 52 terabits/s.
Founded by physics PhD Dr Andy Stevens, the New Zealand company has wholly owned subsidiaries in the United States and Thailand.
Stevens said the investment will help Quantifi Photonics carry out its strategy to seize the high value test instruments market.
Such instruments are required to support a rapidly growning transceivers market which Stevens said is projected to exceed US$14 billion by 2026.
It plans to grow its research and development and manufacturing teams, and to add customer support capability in Europe and America.
Intel Capital's managing director Sean Doyle said silicon photonics is a key technique in the future of the semiconductor andn telecommunications industries, due to increasing bandwith demand for data centre and 5G/6G applications.
Existing investors in Quantifi Photonics include Pacific Channel, Nuance Connected Capital, Simplicity, K1W1, NZ Growth Capital Partners, UniServices and Punakaiki Fund.
