PicoJool raises $27.5 million to commercialize faster optical links for AI systems

PicoJool has raised $27.5 million to move its high-speed optical components from early sampling toward qualification and commercial production for AI data centers.

The company announced that Socratic Partners led the Series A and Hudson River Trading participated. The financing follows a $12 million seed round led by Playground Global and brings PicoJool's disclosed total to $39.5 million.

PicoJool builds vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers, or VCSELs, for short-range optical connections. These semiconductor lasers convert electrical signals into light so data can move between processors and networking equipment without relying entirely on copper links.

Its portfolio includes 100G and 200G-per-lane VCSELs plus lower-power microVCSEL configurations. PicoJool says the parts can be combined into connections scaling from 800G to 1.6T and 3.2T, while its parallel microVCSEL design is intended to reduce the energy used for each bit moved. Those performance and efficiency figures are company claims awaiting customer deployment evidence.

The new capital will support expansion in the United States and Taiwan, product qualification, manufacturing capacity and modules built around the laser chips. SiliconANGLE reports that the company is targeting the bandwidth bottleneck created by connecting growing clusters of AI accelerators.