Historic investment round

iPronics, a pioneering company in photonic infrastructure for artificial intelligence, founded in 2019 as a spin-off from the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV), has completed a landmark Series B funding round, raising €108 million – one of the largest ever in the field of advanced engineering.

The round, co-led by Maverick Silicon and Light Street Capital, also saw NVIDIA join alongside new and existing investors such as Criteria Venture Tech, Triatomic Capital, Bosch Ventures, Catalight Capital, the European Innovation Council Fund, The Tate Family Trust, Fine Structure Ventures, Amadeus Capital Partners, and Build Collective.

The company will use the funding to scale up its operations, accelerate commercial deployment and meet the growing demand for iPronics ONE (Optical Networking Engine), its artificial intelligence (AI) optical switch that dynamically reconfigures connectivity between clusters of graphics processing units (GPUs) in real time. iPronics, headquartered in Valencia, has opened an office in Santa Clara, California, to strengthen its presence in the United States.

Total funding of 153 million

With this transaction, the total funding raised by the company amounts to 153 million euros, consolidating iPronics' position as one of Europe's leading players in photonic infrastructure for artificial intelligence.

"Having the support of Maverick Silicon, Light Street Capital and NVIDIA is a powerful validation of our vision, elevating iPronics to a new tier of leaders in optical networking," says Christian Dupont, CEO of iPronics. "With this investment, we can significantly accelerate our commercialisation and ensure that data centres can make the most of their GPUs without affecting performance," he adds.

"This Series B funding round is a testament to our team's tireless execution," says Daniel Pérez López, founder and CTO of iPronics, who emphasises that, "with the support of world-class partners, we can demonstrate that we are capable of building and deploying this technology at scale".

"It proves that Spanish science can lead global markets"

"We backed iPronics from the very beginning," says Albert Morro, vice-chairman of the iPronics Board of Directors representing Criteria Venture Tech, "because we understood that photonics would ultimately become an essential part of AI infrastructure. The fact that some of the world's most prestigious investors now share this vision confirms its potential. It demonstrates that Spanish science can give rise to companies capable of leading global technology markets."

Manish Muthal and Geoffrey Tate, new members of the board of directors

Manish Muthal, senior managing director at Maverick Silicon, and Geoffrey Tate, an adviser to Light Street Capital and one of the most recognised figures in the semiconductor industry, have joined the iPronics Board of Directors. Tate was the founder and CEO of Rambus, the co-founder and CEO of Flex Logix, and, previously, the senior vice president of Microprocessors at AMD. He currently sits on the board of directors at Ayar Labs.

In addition, Young Sohn, founding partner of Catalight Capital – a fund manager specialising in AI infrastructure – is joining the company as an adviser. Sohn brings decades of leadership experience in semiconductors and silicon photonics: he was corporate president and chief strategy officer at Samsung and CEO of Inphi, and currently serves on the boards of Arm and Cadence Design Systems.

From a laboratory in Valencia to global AI infrastructure

Founded in 2019 as a spin-off from the UPV following years of research into programmable photonics, iPronics is today a tangible example of the technology transfer potential of the Spanish scientific ecosystem – a technology born at the university that is attracting the world's most sophisticated technology capital in the most strategic sector of the coming decade.

As next-generation AI clusters scale up to an ever-increasing number of GPUs, the industry is turning to optical connectivity to obtain higher bandwidth density and lower latency, whilst reducing energy consumption and system complexity. The technology developed by iPronics enables larger GPU clusters to be connected more quickly and efficiently – an increasingly critical element for the next generation of artificial intelligence data centres.

iPronics is a pioneer in optical connectivity solutions, including the industry's first real-time optical circuit-switching layer for AI cluster networks. Its flagship product, iPronics ONE, replaces static network topologies with a software-controlled optical backbone that reconfigures bandwidth in real time, increasing effective utilisation whilst reducing energy consumption and the cost per token.