UK photonic computing company Optalysys has secured £23 million in a Series A extension round to support the commercialisation of its technology and expand into the United States.
The investment was led by Northern Gritstone, with further backing from imec.xpand, Lingotto Horizon and the UK Government’s National Security Strategic Investment Fund (NSSIF).
We acted as legal advisers to Optalysys on the investment. The firm coordinated input from three separate advisers representing the main investors and drew on the firm’s extensive experience in advising scaling deep‑tech companies on complex, strategically sensitive investment rounds.
Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Leeds, Optalysys is pioneering a new generation of photonic chips that combine silicon photonics with advanced digital technologies. By integrating data movement and processing into a single interface, the company is aiming to deliver the kind of computational power now essential for AI workloads and modern cloud infrastructure.
Alongside its core chip platform, Optalysys has developed the world’s first dedicated hardware solution for encrypted blockchain applications. LightLockerTM Node uses early forms of fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) in digital form, enabling data to be processed without ever being decrypted – a capability that is becoming increasingly important for secure cloud and enterprise computing.
Reflecting on the investment, Dr Nick New, CEO and co-founder of Optalysys, said:
“We are at a defining moment in the evolution of computing. Photonic computing opens up fundamentally new capabilities, allowing data to be moved and processed with far greater speed and efficiency. This investment validates both the scale of the opportunity ahead and our ability to execute against it. It allows us to expand into new markets and take an important step towards making photonic computing a mainstream part of cloud infrastructure.”
Robert Todd, CTO and co-founder, added:
“Recent acquisitions in the semiconductor industry have highlighted the role that photonics can play in addressing the limits of electronic computing, particularly in processing capability and power consumption, resulting from the demands of training and running even larger AI models. Expanding to the US is an exciting and natural next step for us, so that we can tap into its strong photonics ecosystem and the immense talent located in Silicon Valley.”
Zickie Lim, partner at Mills & Reeve, said:
“We’re genuinely delighted to have supported Optalysys on this significant milestone. It’s a superb example of the UK’s deep‑tech sector pushing boundaries in ways that could reshape how organisations handle data and compute power. Working with a team that is so clearly redefining what’s possible was a real pleasure, and we’re proud to have played a part in helping them reach this next stage.”
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