Salience Labs Closed Series A Round Led by Applied Ventures and ICM HPQC Fund
February 07 2025 - 3:14AM
Business Wire
Appointment of Dr. William Jeffrey to the Board
and Bonnie Tomei as CFO
Salience Labs Limited, a leader in photonic solutions targeting
connectivity for AI datacenter infrastructure, today announced the
successful close of $30 million in Series A financing led by ICM
HPQC Fund and Applied Ventures, LLC, the venture capital arm of
Applied Materials, Inc., to further the development of its optical
switches for large scale AI connectivity. Applied Ventures and ICM
HPQC Fund are joined by Strategic Investment Fund, Braavos, and
continued participation from existing investors Oxford Sciences
Enterprises, Cambridge Innovation Capital, and leaders from the
global semiconductor industry including Silicon Catalyst and Jalal
Bagherli.
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“What our customers want is a photonic switch to connect their
AI clusters that is compatible with existing infrastructure while
delivering high bandwidth, low latency and significant power
savings. The completion of this round will further our development
and help us bring our product to customers to enable not just the
savings, but large cluster connectivity,” said Vaysh Kewada,
Co-founder and CEO of Salience Labs. “We are also excited to be
working closely with our strategic investors who are industry
leaders to advance our go-to market schedule.”
“Silicon photonics is a promising technology to deliver
significant advancements in energy-efficient performance for AI
data centers,” said Anand Kamannavar, Vice President and Global
Head of Applied Ventures. “Salience's optical switch solution has
the potential to enable a new generation of interconnect network
architectures for faster and more efficient AI systems.”
“Salience Labs has done a tremendous job in developing a
portfolio of innovative silicon photonics products that addresses
critical needs in data center and AI infrastructure market,” said
Dr. Jalal Bagherli, investor of Salience Labs and former CEO of
Dialog Semiconductor that was acquired by Renesas. “Their customer
focused approach in addition to the technology that are based on
over a decade of research makes Salience Labs a clear leader to win
in this enormous market.”
“Salience Lab’s optical switches will enable unprecedented
bandwidth and scalability for the next generation of AI and
high-performance data centers. By leveraging light, they will
unlock the full capability of modern servers while decreasing power
consumption and cost. ICM HPQC is excited to work with Vaysh and
the Salience team as lead of the Series A raise,” said Dr. William
Jeffrey, Chairman of the technical advisory committee on the ICM
HPQC Fund and newly appointed Board Member of Salience Labs.
Appointment of Dr. William Jeffrey as new Board
Member
In conjunction with the closing of the Series A financing,
Salience Labs is appointing Dr. Jeffrey to the Board of Directors,
where he joins Jack Edmondson, Chief Investment Officer of Oxford
Sciences Enterprises, and Daniel Armbrust, co-founder of Silicon
Catalyst, CEO of the SEMATECH semiconductor consortium and
appointee to the Industrial Advisory Committee, which advises the
Department of Commerce on the R&D strategy for the CHIPS
Act.
Dr. Jeffrey is an astronomer with a career spanning the
Executive Office of the President of the United States, to leading
HRL (known for its groundbreaking innovations such as the invention
of the laser, integrated circuits and liquid crystal displays), to
being the Director of the National Institute of Standards and
Technology, an institution boasting three Nobel prize laureates and
ties to a dozen more, and he served as the CEO of SRI
International. Dr. Jeffrey earned a Bachelor of Science in physics
from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Ph.D. in
astronomy from Harvard University.
Appointment of Bonnie Tomei as Chief Financial
Officer
Salience Labs is also announcing its appointment of Bonnie
Tomei, a certified public accountant and an industry veteran
located in Silicon Valley, California, as Chief Financial
Officer.
“With over 20 years of experience including initial public
offerings, de-SPAC and a strong business operations background, Ms.
Tomei will be a key member of the executive team to realize our
strategic and operational objectives, including expanding to the
U.S. to serve our key customers,” said Ms. Kewada.
About Salience Labs
Salience Labs Limited is a leader in photonic solutions
targeting connectivity for AI datacenter infrastructure. Founded in
2021 and backed by over a decade of research from the University of
Oxford in the UK and University of Münster in Germany, Salience’s
innovative developments in photonic switching technology enable
high-speed, ultra-low latency networking fabrics that remove
infrastructure bottlenecks for AI workloads. Learn more at
http://www.saliencelabs.ai
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Bonnie Tomei bonnie.tomei@saliencelabs.ai +1 669 212-1089