PicoJool raised $27.5 million in Series A funding led by Socratic Partners with participation from Hudson River Trading, bringing total funding to $39.5 million after an earlier seed round. The company will expand teams in the U.S. and Taiwan, qualify products with customers, and advance its VCSEL chip and module portfolio.
The startup's VCSEL technology enables high-speed data transmission via optical cables, offering up to 200G per lane to replace copper interconnects in large AI clusters. PicoJool aims to reduce energy costs and bandwidth constraints as AI model sizes grow, with plans to mass-produce its 200G VCSEL in partnership with chip foundries.