Morphotonics closes €40M+ Series B to tackle AI devices’ hidden manufacturing bottleneck

Netherlands-based deeptech company Morphotonics has raised more than €40 million in Series B funding to scale its manufacturing technology for AI glasses, augmented reality waveguides and advanced photonic components. The round includes continued backing from existing investors 3M Ventures, Innovation Industries and BOM, alongside Invest-NL as a major new investor. The European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund, Ernij Next and the European Investment Bank (EIB) also participated.

Based in Veldhoven, Morphotonics develops large-area nanoimprint lithography platforms designed for manufacturing optical components at scale. The company is particularly focused on waveguides, transparent optical components that project digital images into a wearer’s field of vision and are used in AI glasses and spatial-computing devices.

Manufacturing waveguides at consumer-electronics scale remains challenging, with existing production methods often slow, expensive and difficult to adapt to different optical designs. Morphotonics’ technology replicates micro- and nanoscale structures across large substrates, with the aim of enabling manufacturers to produce components such as AR waveguides at higher volumes and lower costs.

To address this, its nanoimprint lithography process uses a mould to press nano- and microscopic patterns into a liquid resin coating before hardening them with UV light. This allows manufacturers to reproduce patterns with high precision across large surfaces.

Over the past year, Morphotonics has continued developing its Cypris platform, which is designed specifically for high-volume waveguide manufacturing. The company is working with device and component manufacturers in China, Taiwan, the US and Europe as they develop production processes for AI glasses and other optical systems.

Everyone is talking about AI glasses right now. AI is moving off the screen and into the real world, into glasses, spatial systems, and a new generation of intelligent devices. But these and similar devices will not reach mass adoption unless the optical components inside them can be manufactured at consumer-electronics scale,

said Hugo da Silva, CEO of Morphotonics.

The technology also has potential applications in components for displays, sensors and photonic systems, including optical technologies being developed for future computing and data-centre infrastructure.

Morphotonics will use the new funding to increase production capacity for its Cypris platform, advance product development and grow its engineering, commercial and customer-support teams. It will also strengthen its supplier and manufacturing networks and build its after-sales infrastructure.