Ephos designs and manufactures glass-based integrated photonic chips designed to power conventional and quantum devices.
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US venture capital firm Starlight Ventures led Ephos’ seed round, which also included participation from Collaborative Fund, Exor Ventures, 2100 Ventures, and Unruly Capital.
Notable angel investors included Joe Zadeh, a former vice president and chief stakeholder officer at Airbnb, Diego Piacentini, former SVP for international consumer business at Amazon, and Simone Severini, general manager for quantum technologies at AWS.
Ephos used some of the funds to launch a new research and manufacturing facility in Milan, Italy. The site will serve as its central hub for research and development and production.
Alongside the Milan facility, Ephos plans to put the funding towards operating and growing its San Francisco team.
“Securing this funding and opening our Milan facility is a critical milestone for Ephos. Our glass-based photonic chips are set to transform not just quantum computing and AI, but the broader computational infrastructure of the future,” said Andrea Rocchetto, CEO and co-founder at Ephos. “By addressing energy inefficiencies and enhancing performance across industries, from data centres to secure communications, we’re laying the foundation for the next generation of computing technology.”
Glass-based storage has been a staple research project for engineers and scientists in recent years. The concept essentially enables data to be stored inside glass plates.
Glass is seen as a more viable long-term storage solution as the material can last thousands of years, compared to traditional magnetic-based storage which has a limited shelf life of anywhere from five to 10 years.
Glass-based storage also offers more security than traditional chips, as once data is written inside glass, it’s impossible to change.
Ephos uses a proprietary femtosecond laser to design and build glass-based photonic chips.
The startup’s chips reduce signal loss, a hurdle to building quantum computers. In quantum computing, information cannot be duplicated or copied, so, during situations where signals are lost, it’s impossible to replace one once lost.
In addition to the seed funding, Ephos has received funding from the European Innovation Council (EIC) and NATO's Defence Innovation Accelerator (DIANA).
The startup was chosen for funding as one of just 10 companies out of a pool of more than 1,300 applicants.
Given that its chips are manufactured solely in the US and Europe, Ephos said its chips offer “a unique geopolitical advantage,” ensuring critical quantum infrastructure is developed within NATO.
“We see tremendous potential in Ephos’s glass-based photonic chips to revolutionize the future of computing," said Kike Miralles, principal at Starlight Ventures. "As AI and quantum advancements challenge the limits of our current infrastructure, Ephos stands out with its ability to significantly reduce signal loss and improve energy efficiency.
"This innovation not only meets the growing demands for faster, more efficient platforms but also opens the door to new possibilities in quantum computing and communication technologies across multiple industries."
Aside from Ephos, Microsoft has been trialling glass-based storage for some time. Its Project Silica team has been investigating glass as a long-term solution to storage, designing both hardware and software stacks for glass storage from scratch.
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