Salience Labs raises US$125 million for optical switching chips
Bullhound Capital led the Series B round, with British Business Bank, AMD Ventures and Intel Capital among the investors.
Salience Labs has secured US$125 million in an oversubscribed Series B round to bring its optical switches into AI data centres and increase manufacturing capacity. The funding will also support product development and an expansion of its engineering team.
Bullhound Capital led the investment, joined by AMD Ventures, Intel Capital, SBI Group, Hudson River Trading and British Business Bank. Returning backers included Applied Ventures, Oxford Science Enterprises, Cambridge Innovation Capital and Silicon Catalyst Ventures. Callum Stewart, Principal at Bullhound Capital, will take a seat on the company's board.
The company's optical circuit switching (OCS) technology is intended to link thousands of GPUs across several racks in AI data centres. Salience Labs says its integrated, all-optical chip design addresses demands for network performance, efficiency and power consumption. The architecture draws on more than a decade of silicon photonics research and is designed for manufacturing at high volumes.
Salience Labs demonstrated a 64-port photonic switch at ECOC 2026 and is developing versions with 128 ports and 256 ports for larger networks and other data-intensive uses. It is working with Keysight Technologies and Tower Semiconductor to increase manufacturing capacity. Its expansion plans also include a second West Coast location to strengthen its Silicon Valley presence, alongside entry into additional geographic markets.
