Tiger Global Leads $65 Million Round in Avicena

SUNNYVALE &&num;8212&semi; Avicena, a developer of ultra-low power high-density microLED-based interconnects, has raised &dollar;65 million in Series B Funding, bringing the total capital raised to &dollar;120 million&period; The round was led by Tiger Global with participation from new and existing investors including Maverick Silicon, Prosperity7 Ventures, Venture Tech Alliance, SK hynix, Cerberus Capital Management, Hitachi Ventures and Lam Research&period;&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;This highly oversubscribed funding round is another testament that Avicena is in a leading position to disrupt the AI interconnect market, and reflects the magnitude of business opportunity before us,” said Bardia Pezeshki, Founder and CEO of Avicena&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We will use the new funds to further scale our team and ramp our first product into production&period; Our LightBundle microLED-based interconnects provide superior bandwidth density, energy efficiency, reliability and cost compared to all other optical interconnect technologies&period;”&NewLine;Artificial intelligence (AI) is driving an unprecedented surge in demand for compute and memory performance&period; Avicena’s groundbreaking LightBundle technology is based on arrays of GaN microLEDs that leverage the large display ecosystem and can be integrated directly onto any high-performance CMOS IC&period; The microLED transmit arrays are coupled into multi-fiber cables which connect to matching arrays of integrated silicon detectors, enabling class-leading optical interconnects which provide superior performance, reliability and cost compared to laser-based solutions&period;&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Avicena’s unique technology has transformative potential for improving the bandwidth and reducing the power consumption of AI computing systems,” says Rohit Iragavarapu, Partner at Tiger Global&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We are excited to be investing behind them and their vision for a better AI interconnect&period;”&NewLine;&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Energy-efficient optical interconnects are becoming a major topic in the architecture of next generation disaggregated memory fabrics,” says Rene Do, Senior Director, Venture Investment, SK hynix&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Since high speed electrical interconnects have fundamental reach limitations, and laser-based optical links are too power hungry, microLED-based interconnects like Avicena’s LightBundle represent a very promising solution for low power links in future memory fabrics&period; We are excited to join this round and potentially collaborate with the Avicena team on the development of next generation memory interconnects&period;”&NewLine;

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