Series B led by Walden Catalyst Ventures will bring the company's FenGlass™ modulator platform to production for next-generation optical interconnects

CARLSBAD, Calif.: Polaris Electro-Optics, Inc. today announced $50 million in new financing to bring its FenGlass™ electro-optic modulator platform to production. The round was led by Walden Catalyst Ventures, with participation from new investors Socratic Partners, Cambium Capital, Knollwood and Hudson River Trading, and from existing investors Koch Disruptive Technologies, M Ventures, Rhapsody Venture Partners, Buff Gold Ventures and Blue Sky Capital. Andy Kau, Partner at Walden Catalyst Ventures, joins the Polaris Board of Directors.

As AI workloads exponentially grow in the agentic era, data movement has become a crucial bottleneck in AI infrastructure. Not only are networks severely bandwidth constrained, but energy consumption per bit is also unsustainable. To address these challenges, hyperscalers, neoclouds, and infrastructure providers are attempting to scale both the data rate per lane and the number of lanes. The next node requires 400 Gbps per lane and beyond to enable all applications from scale-up, scale-out, and scale-across to DCI.

Polaris Electro-Optics’ FenGlass platform is built to remove the trade-off between manufacturability, reliability, and bandwidth that plagues other next generation modulator technologies. The platform uses a proprietary ferroelectric nematic glass that exhibits strong Pockels effect and is integrated directly onto finished silicon photonic wafers after they leave the foundry, using standard processes and no poling. The result is modulators that reach 400 Gbps per lane with sub-volt drive voltages in a compact footprint with excellent linearity, all built inside the silicon photonics platform the industry has already qualified.

"The industry doesn't have a speed problem or a manufacturing problem, it has both at the same time, and every existing platform solves only one," said Morten Nissov, CEO of Polaris Electro-Optics. "Our FenGlass platform enables 400G per lane and beyond while staying inside a standard CMOS silicon photonics flow. Our customers don't have to bet on a new fab, a new substrate or a new supply chain to get to their next node. Today’s financing round funds the move from a proven device to large scale commercial deployment."

The company has demonstrated and independently verified 400 Gbps per lane modulation with FenGlass, completed Telcordia reliability tests, and validated compatibility with standard solder reflow. These are all critical requirements for next-generation optical interconnect applications relying on flip-chip, 2.5D, and 3D packaging. Because FenGlass is an engineered material, its electro-optic response can be tuned across product generations-from 200G per lane to 400G and toward 800G. Building upon materials that have been commercially deployed for over five decades and produced at scale of tens of thousands of metric tons, the FenGlass platform also bypasses the common pitfalls of a new technology introduction process.

"New electro-optic materials have been failing the same test for decades: they work in the lab but fail in the fab," said Andy Kau, Partner at Walden Catalyst Ventures. "What convinced us about Polaris is that FenGlass goes onto a finished silicon photonics wafer using processes a contract manufacturer already runs. Performance and reliability are table stakes. The ease of integration and the path to scale are why we led this round."

Polaris is partnering with optical module makers, hyperscalers, and major cloud infrastructure providers to enable solutions across pluggable modules, near-packaged optics (NPO), co-packaged optics (CPO), and coherent scale-across architectures, with the first product launch targeted for 2027. Proceeds from this financing round will fund portfolio expansion, volume scale-up, product tapeouts, qualification, and engineering hiring at both company sites.

Founded in 2021 as a spinout of the University of Colorado Boulder, Polaris Electro-Optics develops its materials in Boulder, Colorado and its photonic solutions in Carlsbad, California.

Polaris will exhibit at ECOC 2026 in Málaga, September 21–23, booth 1465. [Request a meeting here].

About Polaris Electro-Optics

Polaris Electro-Optics develops high-speed electro-optic modulator technology for AI, datacom and telecom infrastructure. Its FenGlass™ platform integrates a proprietary ferroelectric nematic glass material into standard silicon photonic integrated circuits, delivering 400 Gbps per lane and beyond at sub-volt drive voltages with CMOS-compatible, scalable manufacturing. Founded in 2021 as a spinout of the University of Colorado Boulder, Polaris Electro-Optics operates from Carlsbad, California (HQ) and Boulder, Colorado. Learn more at polariseo.com.

About Walden Catalyst Ventures

Walden Catalyst Ventures is a global venture capital firm focused on deep-tech innovation. With offices in Silicon Valley, Europe, and Israel the firm partners with world-class founders developing breakthrough technologies that transform industries and advance society.

The Walden Catalyst team brings decades of experience as entrepreneurs, executives, and investors at leading technology companies, with a track record of building and backing category-defining businesses. The firm invests across semiconductors, AI infrastructure, advanced computing, and other foundational technologies shaping the future.

Fonte: Business Wire