AI’s explosive growth is driving increasing demand for higher-performance datacenters, but existing hardware can’t keep up. Scintil Photonics is changing this through their integrated photonic solutions purpose-built for AI datacenters – and we at NGP Capital are happy to announce co-leading their $58M Series B financing round.

The Series B, co-led by NGP Capital and Yotta Capital, with participation from NVIDIA, comes at a pivotal moment for Scintil. The company is on the verge of moving to high-volume production as well as expanding to the US market, all the while continuing to hire top talent in France, the US and Canada.

How Silicon Photonics will redefine AI Infrastructure

While much of the conversation around AI focuses on advances in software-like model architectures, training data, and algorithmic breakthroughs, a revolution is happening just as powerfully in hardware. Training state-of-the-art AI models now requires specialized, hyperscale AI datacenters filled with racks of powerful GPUs and purpose-built accelerators, all working in parallel and moving vast quantities of data at lightning speed.

The AI datacenter industry is currently undergoing a transformative shift, with leading players actively moving to replace copper-based connectivity with optical solutions inside the datacenters between racks and inside the racks as well. Just this March, NVIDIA’s GTC unveiled its bold commitment to replacing copper connections, while AMD’s acquisition of Enosemi highlights the strategic urgency to build silicon photonics expertise. In general, over 30 million optically connected XPUs are expected to be deployed globally by 2029 (Scintil).

The key reason for this shift is that traditional electrical interconnects simply can't handle the bandwidth, speed, scale, or energy requirements of modern AI workloads. In fact, even many optical solutions still struggle with bandwidth, power or manufacturability, because they often use discrete components. Scintil is solving all of these issues with their unique products and manufacturing approach by integrating multi-wavelength laser sources using standard silicon processes, and being the only company globally so far to demonstrate this approach successfully.

Scintil – a global leader out of France’s key semiconductor hub

Scintil was officially founded in 2018, but its products are built on IP based on over 15 years of research at CEA-Leti, one of Europe’s leading semiconductor institutes. The company is based in Grenoble, sometimes titled even as the ‘Silicon Valley of France’, where they benefit from similar leading research institutions, companies and a deep talent pool. In addition to having its roots in this exceptional ecosystem, Scintil has also already started to establish its US presence to serve hyperscale and AI infrastructure partners more directly.

Scintil is powered by an exceptional team, led by Founder and CTO Sylvie Menezo and CEO Matt Crowley, whose expertise bridges world-class science and commercial scale. Sylvie has been building Scintil’s technology backbone since her time as Head of Silicon Photonics at CEA-Leti. Matt complements this with a proven entrepreneurial track record within the semiconductor industry spanning over two decades, including selling his previous company to Qualcomm. Together with their team, they have been able to reach technical proof points fast and are now at a head start in delivering next-generation silicon photonics in the AI datacenter market.

The Series B supports the commercial ramp-up of their first key product, LEAF Light, a DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) laser source enabling low-power, high-density and high-bandwidth optical connectivity. However, what makes Scintil exceptionally unique, besides their products, is their SHIP (Scintil Heterogeneous Integration Photonics) process, allowing for multiple optical devices integrated directly on silicon, using standard manufacturing processes and no intermediary materials. This approach opens a variety of great opportunities within silicon photonics, whether that is expanding into other products in the AI datacenter infrastructure, new materials or just optimising performance for different customer needs.

NGP continuing track record in backing disruptive deep-tech hardware companies

Scintil Photonics stands out as a powerful example of NGP Capital’s commitment to support deep-tech innovators within today’s critical infrastructure, such as AI datacenters. These R&D-intense hardware companies are not unfamiliar to NGP either – we have, for example, backed Heptagon, whose pioneering micro-optics systems reshaped smartphone and sensor industries and led to a billion-dollar exit through an acquisition by ams AG, as well as NILT, a leader in nanoimprint lithography and micro-optical solutions now acquired by Radiant Opto-Electronics Corporation.

For NGP, these companies embody our investment thesis of backing world-class deep-tech teams whose innovations will deliver transformative industry impact.