SMART Photonics receives €20 million investment from Dutch government
Government funding underlines strategic role of TU/e spin-off in photonics ecosystem
The Dutch government is investing 20 million euros in the TU/e spin-off Smart Photonics. SMART Photonics is a manufacturer of photonic chips, a new type of chips that uses light instead of electricity to process information in a highly energy-efficient way. The investment will ensure that Smart Photonics, a key player in the photonics industry, will remain in Dutch hands. The company needs additional funds to grow and had already attracted interest from foreign investors. Photonics will play a crucial part in the data centers, self-driving cars and 5G networks of the future and is therefore seen as a strategic industry for the Netherlands and Europe.
SMART Photonics was founded in 2012 by TU/e and is based on decades of groundbreaking research into photonics at our university. It is a so-called ‘pure-play foundry’, which produces Indium Phosphide-based photonic components for customers based on their own designs. In the micro-electronics world this is a common model but in photonics this Eindhoven company was the first of its kind.
Professor Meint Smit, who helped develop the technology at the start of this century, says the process is unique because of its generic nature. This allows for much more flexible and cheaper production runs, making the manufacturing of photonic chips available for all kinds of applications and for small companies.
Ecosystem
According to minister Mona Keijzer of the Dutch ministry of Economic Affairs, SMART Photonics plays a crucial role in the Eindhoven photonics ecosystem, providing local startups in the region with crucial photonic components.
‘”It is realistic to assume that without the SMART Photonics production facility in the Netherlands, today's research and development projects in the field of integrated photonics will disappear from North-Brabant and even the Netherlands, and that the Netherlands will suffer significant loss of knowledge as well as economic damage as a result”, writes Keijzer in a letter (Word-file, in Dutch) to the Dutch Parliament.
The investment of 20 million euros is part of a total funding of 35 million euro made available by a Dutch consortium, which, alongside the Dutch state, includes Innovation Industries, an independent hight tech investment fund, the Brabant Development Agency (BOM), PhotonDelta and KPN Ventures.
SCALE uP
CEO Johan Feenstra of SMART Photonics is very excited about the extra funding. “Thanks to this investment we are able to bring our foundry to the next level. This will allow us to scale up our volumes as we support our customers in bringing their first commercial products using photonic integration technology to the market”.
SMART Photonics had been seeking for additional funding for some time, but had so far failed to attract interest from European investors, says Feenstra. This increased the chances of the company falling into foreign hands. The company needs the extra money to expand the factory in Eindhoven to a scale that allows for cheaper and large-scale production of photonic chips.
SMART Photonics employs some 70 people, and is partly owned by TU/e. The company works closely together with researchers of our university to further develop Indium Phosphide-based photonic chip technology.
Interested in photonics research at TU/e? Check out the Integrated Photonics page.