Holographic display company Swave Photonics announced the closing of its €27 million ($28.27 million) Series A funding round. This investment in Swave will catalyze the advancement of its Holographic eXtended Reality (HXR) platform, enabling a reality-first user experience for AI-based augmented reality (AR) smartglasses and heads-up displays.
This funding round was co-led by investors imec.xpand and SFPIM Relaunch, with participation from new investors EIC Fund, IAG Capital Partners, and Murata Electronics North America and existing investors Qbic Fund, PMV, imec, and Luminate. Swave had previously raised a €10 million ($10.47 million) Seed round in 2023, which propelled the launch of Swave’s HXR technology and the expansion of Swave’s team, which utilizes the top talent in photonics and semiconductors.
Swave’s HXR technology utilizes the world’s smallest pixel to shape light and sculpt high-quality 3D holographic images, creating a reality-first user experience where digital information interacts and adapts to the user’s surroundings. The images allow the human vision system to process them naturally, leveraging patented DynamicDepth technology.
AR devices currently being prototyped or sell on the market are all faced with challenges of high cost, uncomfortable size and weight, high power usage, and visual phenomena such as Vergence-Accommodation Conflict (causing nausea or fatigue for users). Swave’s HXR technology solves these issues and also eliminates the need for the most costly components, such as waveguides or varifocal lenses, which are inherently required for existing AR devices.
Swave’s technology has been developed for over a decade and holds 60 core technology patents.
KEY QUOTES:
“This round will accelerate Swave’s product introductions as we continue to solve the challenges of today’s AR experiences through true holography. We are thrilled with continued support from our existing investors and our new investors. They recognize that Swave uniquely brings together semiconductor, holographic and AI technologies in a way that will deliver cost-effective and truly useful solutions.”
- Mike Noonen, Swave CEO
“AR glasses are set to become the primary interface for AI-powered spatial computing and other applications, and Swave is uniquely positioned to enable this future. We are co-designing every element—from our holographic SLMs with cutting-edge nano-pixels, to real-time compute chips, light engines, and AR combiners—delivering the most advanced and integrated solution yet.”
- Theo Marescaux, Swave co-founder and Chief Product Officer
“With Swave’s seed funding, we successfully built our team, proved the capabilities of the technology, and completed prototype designs. With Series A funding secured and silicon running at our partner fabs, we are on track to introduce product development kits and soon thereafter production devices.”
- Dmitri Choutov, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer
