May venture deals in photonics were highlighted by companies using innovative thin-film or surface texturing technology to tailor optical properties for specific applications.
The largest deal we noted in this category was for NIL Technology, a Danish company using nanoimprint lithography to improve the performance of meta-optics for applications such as consumer electronics and robotics. The company announced that it had raised €29 million to help scale its manufacturing organization and capabilities in a round led by Export & Investment Fund of Denmark, Jolt Capital, NGP Capital, and Swisscanto Private Equity.
MIT spinout Active Surfaces raised a large $5.6 million pre-Seed round led by Safar Partners with several other firms joining the round to commercialize lightweight, flexible solar panels based on several years of academic research into the design and fabrication of thin-film photovoltaics.
Finally, Mapsi Photonics received a €1.5 million investment from Bullnet Capital to advance its macroporous silicon technology in which the company perforates as silicon substrate with electrochemical etching to make infrared filters for industrial applications such as gas identification and thermal vision.