Investors flock to Ayar Labs amid rising interest in AI hardware
The silicon photonics startup pulled in $500 million at a $3.75 billion valuation as investors chase the next bottleneck in AI infrastructure
Copper wires have been the backbone of data centers for decades. Ayar Labs is betting $870 million in total funding that light will replace them, and some of the biggest names in tech and finance are betting right alongside.
The Santa Clara-based startup closed a $500 million Series E round on March 3, 2026, pushing its valuation to roughly $3.75 billion. That’s a more-than-tripling from where the company sat after its $155 million Series D in December 2024, when it first crossed the billion-dollar threshold.
Who’s writing the checks
Neuberger Berman led the round, which is notable because the firm manages north of $500 billion in assets. ARK Invest, Insight Partners, Qatar Investment Authority, Sequoia Global Equities, and 1789 Capital all participated as new investors. AMD, NVIDIA, MediaTek, and Alchip all joined the round as strategic participants.
The round brought Ayar Labs’ total funding to approximately $870 million. Founded in 2015, the company spent years in the research phase before the acceleration in capital deployment over the last 18 months.
Why light beats copper
Ayar Labs builds TeraPHY optical engines and SuperNova remote light sources. These components replace copper interconnects with optical links that use light to transmit data between chips, delivering higher bandwidth, lower latency, and better energy efficiency.
The company’s integration into the NVIDIA NVLink Fusion ecosystem in June 2026 was a significant strategic milestone. Fast Company also named Ayar Labs among its top five most innovative computing companies in 2026.