NLM Photonics receives new investment to scale its organic photonic ecosystem

News and Business

Electro-optics developer NLM Photonics has announced that it has received investment from Pangaea Ventures and Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation’s Diamond Edge Ventures to accelerate commercialisation of its organic photonic ecosystem.

Existing investors Emerald Technology Ventures, Oregon Venture Fund, Idemitsu, Tokyo Ohka Kogyo Co., Ltd. (TOK), and StoryHouse Ventures strengthened their investment, alongside private investors and company employees.

As part of the round, David Weekes, from Pangaea Ventures, will join NLM’s Board of Directors. NLM is the first company to secure investment from both Pangaea Ventures and Emerald Technology Ventures, two influential investors across advanced materials and hard tech landscapes.

“We’ve assembled an investor base that mirrors the ecosystem we’re building, bringing together firms with decades of experience scaling deep technology companies alongside global leaders in semiconductor materials and manufacturing,” said Brad Booth, CEO of NLM Photonics. “Pangaea is the firm where material incumbents and semiconductor giants turn to when validating breakthroughs. Emerald is one of the most established names in industrial and cleantech investing.

“Having both invest in NLM while rounding out with strong investors in the material space – TOK, Idemitsu and Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation – is a powerful signal to the photonics market that NLM has secured the material supply chain while on a path to scale for manufacturing,” added Booth.

The investment reflects growing market confidence in NLM’s organic materials as a path to faster, more energy-efficient photonics, driven by surging AI workloads and demand for higher-bandwidth, lower-power optical interconnects. The capital infusion will accelerate NLM’s ecosystem development for commercial-scale, multi-foundry production of organic hybrid photonic integrated circuits (PICs) for high-speed optical transceivers, next-generation data centre interconnects, and quantum computing based upon NLM’s OEO material families.

“We invest in technologies that materially transform the systems that the world increasingly depends on. NLM’s organic photonics platform is a clear example of technology that not only improves the rate at which data is moved, but does so with substantially lower energy requirements,” said David Weekes of Pangaea Ventures, who joins the NLM board. “NLM has already brought in partners who understand what it takes to move a materials breakthrough into high-volume manufacturing. That combination of strong science and a credible path to scale is rare, and it’s why we wanted to partner with NLM Photonics.”