Lightmatter
This company is in the pipeline of America 2030, IPO CLUB’s $50M, actively managed secondary fund focused on U.S. defense, energy, security and AI.
Updated in January 2026
Headquarter: Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Year Founded: 2017
Leadership: Nick Harris
Industry Sectors: Photonic computing; Artificial intelligence hardware; AI accelerators; Semiconductor technology
Funding Round: $155M Series C (2022)
Valuation: ~$1.2B
Is Lightmatter A Public Company? No, it is currently private
What Is Lightmatter?
Lightmatter is a U.S.-based photonic computing company founded in 2017 by Nick Harris, Ramez Naam, and Thomas Graham, with headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. The company develops hardware that uses light instead of electrons to perform computation, with the goal of dramatically improving the speed, efficiency, and scalability of artificial intelligence workloads. Lightmatter’s mission is to overcome the power and performance limits of traditional semiconductor architectures as AI models grow in size and complexity.
Technology & Products
Lightmatter’s technology is built around silicon photonics, combining optical and electronic components on the same chip to accelerate computation and data movement. Its flagship processor, Envise, uses photonic circuits to perform matrix multiplications—core operations in AI and machine learning—at significantly lower energy cost than conventional GPUs. Complementing this is Passage, a photonic interconnect platform that enables high-bandwidth, low-latency communication between chips inside data centers. Together, these products address both compute and data-transfer bottlenecks, positioning Lightmatter as a full-stack photonic computing provider for AI infrastructure.
Market Opportunity
Lightmatter operates in the rapidly expanding AI accelerator and data center hardware market, driven by explosive growth in large language models, generative AI, and high-performance computing. As energy consumption and thermal limits become critical constraints for data centers, demand is increasing for alternative architectures that can deliver higher performance per watt. Lightmatter targets cloud service providers, hyperscalers, and enterprise AI operators seeking next-generation hardware to sustain AI scaling while controlling power and operating costs.
Competitive Landscape
Lightmatter competes with GPU manufacturers, AI accelerator startups, and photonic computing companies pursuing alternative approaches to AI hardware. Its primary differentiation lies in using light-based computation at scale, rather than relying solely on electronic acceleration or incremental efficiency gains. While incumbents benefit from mature ecosystems and software support, Lightmatter positions itself as a step-change architecture provider, focused on long-term performance and energy advantages as AI workloads increasingly outpace the capabilities of traditional silicon.
How To Buy Lightmatter Stock?
Lightmatter is currently a private company and is not publicly traded on major stock exchanges like the NASDAQ or NYSE. This means you can buy shares through a pre-IPO platform or brokerage like IPO CLUB.
Lightmatter introduces two cutting-edge solutions: the L200 and the Passage M series.
Lightmatter and America 2030 Latest News
This company is in the pipeline of America 2030, IPO CLUB’s $50M, actively managed secondary fund focused on U.S. defense, energy, security, and AI.
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