Optical switching startup Salience Labs raises $125m with AMD and Intel participating in round

Series B raise will support continued development and deployment of optical circuit switching technology

Salience Labs has raised $125 million in a Series B funding round to support the development of photonic chips for AI data center connectivity.

The round was led by Bullhound Capital and saw participation from AMD Ventures and Intel Capital, in addition to SBI Group, Hudson River Trading, and British Business Bank.

Existing investors, including Applied Ventures LLC, Oxford Science Enterprises, Cambridge Innovation Capital, and Silicon Catalyst Ventures, also participated in the Series B raise.

In a statement, Salience Labs said the funding would allow it to accelerate the deployment of its optical circuit switching (OCS) technology, scale its volume manufacturing operations and expand its US presence in Silicon Valley.

Founded in 2021, the Oxford, UK-based company focuses on the development of photonic solutions to support AI data center connectivity. Salience Labs debuted its all-optical 32-port switch in March 2026 and, in September, unveiled the 64-port version, an industry first for silicon photonics OCS technology.

Looking ahead, the startup is hoping to scale its technology even further and ultimately offer 128- and 256-port configurations.

Earlier this month, DCD’s sister publication SDxCentral visited Salience’s facility in Oxfordshire ahead of the company’s formal announcement of its raise.

Speaking to the publication, Salience Labs’ co-founder and CEO, Vaysh Kewada, said: “There is a fundamental network limitation on the size of the scale-up domain. This is partly what is driving that deployment of optical connectivity, and at the same time, customers really need to get a good bang for the buck out of this expensive capex. What matters is utilization and latency.”

“When you look at optical switch companies, yes, there's a growing number, but if you look at who has actually shown silicon, working silicon, it becomes a dwindling number and a handful, especially for a market that large. And this is where we're playing in a very interesting space.”

You can read about the visit and the full interview with Kewada here.

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