SPhotonix Secures $4.5 Million Pre-Seed Investment to Pioneer the Future of 5D Optical Memory and Optics

Summary:

• Deep tech institutional Creator Fund and XTX Ventures lead pre-seed
• High profile leaders of private and public companies participate as angel investors
• Successful pre-seed round reflects significant breakthroughs in FemtoEtch laser nanostructuring tech that resolve challenges in deploying data center storage and advanced optics products

SPhotonix, a fast growing deep tech start-up, has announced the successful completion of their over-subscribed $4.5 million pre-seed round led by Creator Fund, an innovative deep tech institutional investor, and XTX Ventures, the venture capital arm of XTX Markets.SPhotonix’s first capital raise comes some 14 months after SPhotonix CSO, Prof. Peter Kazansky, who developed the technology over the last twenty years, revealed how he had preserved the human genome (15GB) for billions of years, in a 5D Memory Crystal and recently stored the entire Wikipedia, perceived to be the carrier of all human knowledge in a small crystal. The investment enables the firm to scale its world-leading Photonics and Engineering teams whilst executing commercially to meet growing demand for its two core applications in advanced optics and data storage. A number of high profile business leaders join this round as angel investors. 

The raise was led by SPhotonix CEO, Ilya Kazansky. Commenting on the success, Ilya said:

“We’ve had significant interest in our pre-seed round and we are delighted to partner with Creator Fund and XTX Ventures, and others, as we continue our path bridging innovation with commercial success. We are rapidly scaling to address growing opportunities, we recently launched our Swiss based R&D lab, which is now fully operational with a growing team of world leading experts. All of our investors, were curated to align with our vision and will support executing our mission of making data storage scalable, durable and cost-efficient for the new generations growing data storage needs.

“Our proprietary FemtoEtch technology has already found applications for fused silica optics, in industries including microscopy, high power laser (HPL), aerospace, semiconductor manufacturing. Looking at our data storage use cases, in particular as part of current and future cloud solutions for cold and archival storage, the market opportunity is significant. With a 133% increase in data generation in the past four years, global data storage capacity is becoming scarce and heavily unsustainable. The cold data storage market is set to top over $400 billion by 2030, according to Grand View Research, with our optical data storage solutions leading on new, proven technology to address this enormous need.”

“The funding unlocks our ability to recruit world leading specialists, to innovate through the final TRL stages needed to bring 5D optical to earth and space-borne data centres, picking up on the breakthroughs we’ve recently had with writable and rewritable forms. Furthermore, we can now capture and capitalise on the interest we’ve had to date from hyper scalers and corporate partners in the ecosystems, to create the right partnerships for progression, being announced soon. It’s a really exciting moment in our history.”

Alexandra Ntemourtsidou, general partner, Creator Fund commented: “We are delighted to partner with SPhotonix as they commercialise two decades of research into optics for long-term data storage. Today’s data storage needs are putting a huge strain on legacy technologies. Industry must now look towards new storage paradigms. Peter and Ilya bring a rare combination of deep technical rigour and commercial focus; we are thrilled to back them on their mission to bring 5D optical memory technology to market.”

Creator Fund invests in frontier startups being built at Europe’s leading universities. Since its inception in 2019, it has backed 56 companies across 9 countries. It focuses on PhD founders building out of their research in Artificial Intelligence, BioTech, Robotics, Advanced Materials, and Physics. 

Gabriele Papievyte, head, XTX Ventures, said, “At XTX Ventures, we are committed to supporting leading academic and deep‑tech teams as they move from lab to market. We were deeply impressed by SPhotonix’s dedication to developing their unique technology for data storage and advanced optics, and we are excited to help them on their journey.”

XTX Ventures is the venture capital arm of XTX Markets, investing in early-stage companies where AI and machine learning are a core technology. Leveraging the firm’s deep expertise in machine learning and financial technology, the Ventures team provides tailored operational support and guidance, to help its portfolio companies grow and thrive. XTX Ventures can lead investments, co-invest and provide dedicated follow-on capital.

SPhotonix has achieved some notable successes in the past 12 months. From being featured in the Mission Impossible film, The Final Reckoning, to delivering highly precise test targets for a wide range of R&D labs across the globe, SPhotonix is now being recognized as an innovator and executor of photonics, data storage and optic applications. The 5D optical laser fusion technology invented by Prof Peter Kazansky, a world renown academic and scientist, has successfully transferred from a well tested and proven R&D concept into full commercialization.