Silicon photonics firm Rockley raises another $52m

On-silicon photonics firm Rockley Photonics has accumulated $52m in the first closure of Series E funding round, taking the total it has raised to $165m.

Rockley is developing ways to integrate III-V photonics onto silicon wafers, connected by low-loss waveguides.

It was founded in 2013 by Dr. Andrew Rickman, who previously founded UK silicon photonics firm Bookam in 1988 – which IPOed in 2000, became Oclaro in 2009 and is now a part of Lumentum – and was chairman of silicon photonics firm Kotura in 2008 – which sold to Mellanox Technologies in 2013.

“Rockley is uniquely positioned, having developed a proprietary photonics platform and manufacturing technologies, underpinned by a depth of expertise that goes back some 30 years,” said Rickman.

“We are currently using our platform to address applications in data centre and high-performance computing, medical, life sciences, 3D imaging and 3D sensing verticals, with the potential for additional verticals in the future.”

In June, the firm demonstrated 3D imaging and sensing using 1550nm optically-coherent integrated optics to implement frequency-modulated continuous wave (FMCW) lidar spectroscopy – intended for automotive and healthcare applications – at Sensors Expo 2019. FMCW lidar inherently allows target velocity to be measured.

“Our wafer-scale platform provides all the elements for fully integrated optical solutions including: multi-beam lasers, photon-optimised power-handling waveguides and sensitive balanced detectors – a unique combination of features in the silicon photonics industry that can deliver the specifications the automotive OEMs desire,” claimed Rickman.