Morphotonics Raises €40 Million to Expand Nanoimprint Lithography Into Data Centres

Dutch technology company Morphotonics has raised €40 million to expand its nanoimprint lithography technology beyond display manufacturing and into optical components for data centres.

The company has spent more than 12 years developing nanoimprint lithography, a manufacturing process that uses a patterned stamp to create advanced optical structures. Morphotonics says its technology benefits from the Netherlands’ semiconductor ecosystem and works with many suppliers also used across the broader lithography industry.

Expanding From Smart Glasses to Data Centres

Morphotonics’ technology is used to create waveguides, thin optical components that guide light to display images in augmented reality glasses. These components are used in smart glasses applications from companies including Meta, Even Reality, and Magic Leap.

The smart glasses market is attracting growing interest as manufacturers look for ways to produce advanced displays at scale. IDC has forecast strong growth in display-equipped smart glasses shipments, while Bloomberg reported that smart glasses sales in China increased significantly during the first eight months of the year.

New Opportunity in Optical Computing

Morphotonics is also targeting co-packaged optics for data centres, where photonic integrated circuits use light instead of electricity to transfer data between servers and networking equipment. The company said customers have validated its technology in this area, although it has not yet shipped machines for this market.

The funding round was backed by 3M Ventures, Innovation Industries, BOM, Invest-NL, the European Innovation Council Fund, and the European Investment Bank. Morphotonics currently generates most of its revenue from hardware systems, with 10 to 15 machines deployed globally.

The company expects its next machine to produce more than 6 million waveguides annually and plans to increase deployments in the coming years as demand for advanced optical manufacturing grows