Lucidean Raises Series Seed Funding to Accelerate Next-Gen Coherent Optical Links for Data Centers; Announces Dr. James Raring as Chief Executive Officer
Lucidean, a Santa Barbara–based AI interconnect company pioneering coherent optical links for data centers, announced that Dr. James Raring has joined as Chief Executive Officer and that the company has raised $18 million in Seed financing. The Seed funding was co-led by Entrada Ventures and Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT), with participation from Foothill Ventures, M Ventures, Cerberus Ventures, and Raptor Group. With this Seed funding and strong syndicate, Lucidean will expand R&D efforts, validate the performance and efficiency of the CohZero™ platform, and accelerate productization.
Lucidean is addressing a critical gap in the optical-interconnect market where existing intensity-modulation direct-detection (IMDD) and coherent solutions will both fall short. With CohZero™, the company delivers coherent-class performance within the simplicity and power envelope of IMDD, backed by a uniquely capable technical and leadership team poised to tackle AI-scale networking.
Data centers today face a tradeoff: simple, low-cost IMDD optical links that work only over short distances, or high-performance coherent links that require expensive, power-hungry equipment. Lucidean’s CohZero™ architecture eliminates this tradeoff by introducing a new class of coherent optical interconnects designed for seamless adoption in today’s data-center and AI/ML networks. CohZero™ is designed to operate entirely within the existing IMDD ecosystem including IMDD-class lasers already in widespread use, simplified DSPs including compatibility with IMDD DSPs, standard pluggable module architectures, and within both retimed and non-retimed applications including co-packaged optics while delivering coherent-class link budget, reduced impact from fiber impairments, and expanded data rates. This unique combination enables hyperscalers to scale to multi-terabit coherent performance without tight wavelength control, the overhead of traditional coherent DSPs, or disruptive physical-layer redesigns.
AI networks are outgrowing legacy optical approaches, CohZero™ delivers coherent-class optical links with zero overhead. Our recent seed funding and strong syndicate of investors perfectly positions Lucidean for our next phase of growth where we will accelerate hiring and expand our capabilities to rapidly demonstrate our value proposition in hardware and move towards productization.
About Lucidean
Lucidean is redefining data-center optics with CohZero™, a coherent-lite architecture that delivers coherent-class reach and signal integrity at IMDD-like power and cost. Founded in Santa Barbara by veterans of compound-semiconductor photonics and advanced optical link design, Lucidean is developing 3.2 Tbps and 6.4 Tbps transceivers for AI-driven fabrics and data-center interconnects. Learn more at www.lucidean-inc.com.
Contacts
contact@lucidean-inc.com
