Qascade
Qascade is a UK photonic semiconductor startup founded in 2025 and based at Harwell Campus, Oxfordshire, selected for Cohort 4 of the ChipStart UK semiconductor incubator run by Silicon Catalyst.UK.
About
Qascade is a UK photonic semiconductor startup founded in 2025 and based at Harwell Campus, Oxfordshire, selected for Cohort 4 of the ChipStart UK semiconductor incubator run by Silicon Catalyst.UK. It develops ultra-fast, energy-efficient photonic communication hardware that integrates photonic interposers and plasmonic modulators into co-packaged optics (CPO) systems for high-performance datacom, AI compute and hybrid quantum-computing interconnects.
Capital graph
Founders / team· 2
Comparable companies· by market
This company
BusinessLatest roundTotal raisedDate- Qascade
Co-packaged optics (CPO) photonic interconnect hardware for AI data centers and quantum computing interconnects
—
United States
BusinessLatest roundTotal raisedDate- Ayar Labs
Provides co-packaged optics (CPO) interconnect chips for AI data center accelerator clusters…
Series D+ · $1.0B · 2026-09 · Valuation $3.8B
$1.0BValuation $3.8B - MangoBoost
DPU developer helping data centers cut energy use and optimize performance
Series A · $55M · 2023-10
$55M - Eliyan
Provides NuLink chiplet interconnect PHY IP and NuGear interconnect chiplets to AI chip and data center system vendors, enabling high-bandwidth…
Series C · $295M · 2026-07 · Valuation $1.0B
$295MValuation $1.0B
China
BusinessLatest roundTotal raisedDate- Guoke Guangxin (Haining) Technology Co., Ltd.
SiN silicon photonics: 400G-1.6T datacom chips, 3.2T/6.4T NPO/CPO and OIO chiplets for AI; chips for LiDAR, coherent, sensing, OCT
Series B · 2026-09
— - Liangyin Technology
Silicon photonic integrated circuit (PIC/OIO/CPO) R&D
Angel · $7M · 2026-07
$7M - 澜昆微电子
CPO silicon photonics transceiver engines and companion Driver/TIA chips
Angel · 2026-10
—
Europe
BusinessLatest roundTotal raisedDate- Aylight
Chip-scale multi-wavelength lasers for optical interconnects in AI data centers (silicon photonics).
Pre-Seed · $5M · 2026-07
$5M - Salience Labs
All-optical circuit switching chips and modules (32-port OC-32M commercial module, 64-port prototype…
Series B · 2026-10
— - Olix
Photonic AI inference chip (DX-1/optical tensor processing unit) that uses SRAM plus photonic interconnects to bypass the HBM bottleneck…
Series B · $532M · 2026-08 · Valuation $3.3B
$532MValuation $3.3B
Other / unspecified
BusinessLatest roundTotal raisedDate- Photon Bridge
High-power multi-wavelength laser light sources for AI data center optical interconnects and CPO
Undisclosed · 2026-10
— - Solinide Photonics
Silicon nitride photonic integrated chips and integrated frequency combs for AI data centers and telecom
Seed · 2026-08
— - Xsight Labs
Fabless semiconductor company providing programmable Ethernet switch chips and 800G data processing units (DPUs) for hyperscale…
Series D+ · $300M · 2026-07 · Valuation $2.8B
$300MValuation $2.8B
Confirmed rounds only. Matched on subsector, sector, stage and funding scale — each verifiable on the company profiles.
Investors that may fit
Ranked by each firm’s deals in this sector over the last 24 months, weighted by nearby stage and shared geography. Indicative only — no rating judgment.