Jerusalem-based photonics firm Teramount raises $8 million in Series-A round

Jerusalem-based provider of optical connectivity solutions for ultra-high bandwidth applications, Teramount has raised $8 million in a Series-A round

The round was led by Grove Ventures and saw participation from Amelia Investments, former intel EVP and company chairman David Perlmutter, and other undisclosed individuals.

The new funds are expected to continue development and commercialisation of Termamount’s technology.

This funding comes at a critical time for the semiconductor industry as it faces the need to provide ever faster bandwidth. To meet this demand, silicon-photonics have been attracting more and more attention and adoption by semiconductor vendors. However, while the silicon side of things has a mature standarisation behind it, the photonics side is still mostly an in-house, customised build that ends up being cost ineffective, hampers scalability, and reduces reliability.

Teramount is angling to become the world leader in photonics and has recently demonstrated a 100x improved tolerance in assembling fibre to silicon chips when compared to existing technologies. This tolerance allows for successful integration of optics with silicon and thus scalable deployment of silicon photonics.

A tangible example of this technology sits in next-generation data centre co-packaged switches. Cutting out all the jargon, what this means is that in order to support the workload required by cloud computing, AI-related machines, etc. data centres need speed. And not just any speed, they need the ability to effectively and reliably connect hundreds of fibres to a single switch chip. See where Taramount fits into the picture here?

"The ever-increasing need for computing speed and capacity for the current and future needs driven by the world moving fast to digital and the growth of AI applications requires data transfers in the data center and between computers in light speed,” comments Teramount chairman David (Dadi) Perlmutter.

“Teramount technology, not only makes it happen, but makes it manufacturable in higher yields and volume”

“Teramount’s cost-effective, high-yield solutions for connecting hundreds of fibers to a single switch chip is a uniquely scalable solution that offers superior performance, dependability, and cost. It represents a unique opportunity to upend the status quo on an incredible scale and we’re excited to be a part of it,” adds Grove Ventures’ Lior Handelsman.