Morphotonics Raises Over €40M, a Quarter of It as Debt
Startups / news
Morphotonics Raises Over €40M, a Quarter of It as Debt
The Dutch waveguide maker's Series B includes a €20 million convertible loan from the European Investment Bank, a structure that leaves the company owing money if its equity investors don't convert first.
Morphotonics, a Dutch manufacturer of nanoimprint lithography equipment, said Tuesday it closed a Series B round of more than €40 million to scale production of its waveguide-manufacturing platform and enter a new market: optical components for data centers. Chief executive Hugo da Silva said in the European Investment Bank's announcement that "AI is moving off the screen and into the real world, into glasses, spatial systems, and a new generation of intelligent devices," and that those devices "will not reach mass adoption unless the optical components inside them can be manufactured at consumer-electronics scale," a fuller version of the same quote tech.eu published.
Of the total, €20 million is not equity. The European Investment Bank structured its participation as a convertible loan, backed by the European Commission's InvestEU programme, rather than a straight share purchase. Chantal Schrijver, head of the EIB Group's Netherlands office, said "if Europe wants to stay competitive, it needs to stay in front when it comes to cutting-edge technology." Existing investors 3M Ventures, Innovation Industries and BOM returned for the round, joined by Invest-NL as a new major backer, plus the European Innovation Council Fund and the Dutch family office Ernij Next.
What the machines actually make
Morphotonics presses nano- and microscopic patterns into liquid resin using molds, then cures the pattern with UV light, a process called nanoimprint lithography that the company has developed for 12 years. Its output is waveguides, thin pieces of glass or plastic that steer light inside AR displays, and the company names Meta's Ray-Ban Display glasses, Even Reality and Magic Leap as customers for its Cypris manufacturing platform. Da Silva became chief executive in September 2024, when the company's headcount stood at roughly 30; it has since grown to about 60, according to TechCrunch's reporting, with a target range of 70 to 75.
The pivot nobody has bought yet
The new market Morphotonics is chasing with this round is co-packaged optics, using photonic integrated circuits to move data inside servers faster than copper wiring allows. TechCrunch's reporting says customers have validated the technology, but no machines for that application have shipped. That is the gap in the story: the data center push is the reason investors gave more money, and it is also the part of the business with no revenue yet. Today the company has 10 to 15 Cypris systems deployed with display customers and is targeting roughly 50 within two to three years; a newer machine due in early 2027 is meant to produce more than 6 million waveguides a year.
What wasn't said
Neither the EIB's announcement nor tech.eu's report states how the €20 million loan converts, at what valuation, or under what trigger, details that matter to how much of the company existing shareholders keep if it converts. Morphotonics also has not disclosed revenue figures, though the company has said hardware sales make up about 90 percent of its business. The next concrete date to watch is early 2027, when the higher-capacity machine is due to ship.
Morphotonics' Series B, by instrument
| Investor | Instrument |
|---|---|
| European Investment Bank | €20 million convertible loan |
| Invest-NL | Equity (new) |
| 3M Ventures | Equity (returning) |
| Innovation Industries | Equity (returning) |
| BOM | Equity (returning) |
- Sept. 202430 employees
- Sept. 202660 employees
Source: TechCrunch, accessed 2026-09-22
The debt-heavy structure is a contrast with Lightfield's $47 million Series A this month, which was straight equity, and it echoes the extended, multi-instrument rounds Quantum Motion has used to fund hardware that takes years to reach a customer.
Sources
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