Artificial Intelligence
Salience Labs raises $125m Series B
Salience Labs said it raised $125 million in a Series B round led by Bullhound Capital, with several other investors joining, and said it would use the money for manufacturing, expansion and research.
- Salience Labs said it raised $125 million in a Series B round.
- Bullhound Capital led the round, and Intel Capital, AMD Ventures, SBI Group, Hudson River Trading and the British Business Bank joined as investors.
- The company said it develops all-optical circuit-switching technology for AI data centres, and Vaysh Kewada said current networks rely on electronic switching and signal conversions.
- Salience Labs said it showed a 64-port photonic switch at ECOC 2026 in September and was developing 128-port and 256-port versions.
- The company said the money would support volume manufacturing, geographic expansion and research and development, and Cignal AI was cited for a forecast above $8 billion by the end of the decade.
Salience Labs said it raised $125 million in a Series B round. Bullhound Capital led the financing, and Intel Capital, AMD Ventures, SBI Group, Hudson River Trading and the British Business Bank joined as new investors, while Applied Ventures, Oxford Science Enterprises, Cambridge Innovation Capital and Silicon Catalyst Ventures also took part.
The company said it makes all-optical circuit-switching systems for AI data centres. Co-founder and chief executive Vaysh Kewada said most sites still used electronic switches and repeated conversions between optical and electrical signals.
Kewada said those arrangements could not keep up with the demands of large AI clusters and led to latency and higher power use. He said the answer was to send data only over optical links.
Salience Labs said it showed a 64-port photonic switch at ECOC 2026 in September. It said 128-port and 256-port versions were being developed, and that the funding would go to manufacturing, geographic expansion and research and development.
Intel Capital's Srini Ananth said photonic switches would become common in modern AI data centres. He also said Salience Labs stood out because of its integrated silicon photonics design and optical amplification.
Named in this story
People
- Vaysh Kewada
- co-founded the company and is chief executive
- Srini Ananth
- Intel Capital executive who praised the company
Companies
- Salience Labs Inc.
- raised $125 million and develops all-optical circuit-switching technology
- Bullhound Capital
- led the Series B round
- Intel Capital
- invested through its arm
- AMD Ventures
- invested through its arm
- SBI Group
- joined as a new investor
- Hudson River Trading
- joined as a new investor
- Applied Ventures
- returned as an existing backer
- Oxford Science Enterprises
- returned as an existing backer
- Cambridge Innovation Capital
- returned as an existing backer
- Silicon Catalyst Ventures
- returned as an existing backer
- Cignal AI
- was cited for a forecast of the market size
Organisations
- British Business Bank
- joined as a new investor
How the source tells it
The piece read like a promotional funding write-up, built around superlatives, investor praise and confident claims about future demand.
- hype superlative language and first-in-the-world claims were used to frame the demo as a major advance
- vendor boosterism the company’s product claims and an investor’s praise were repeated with little distance
- urgency loaded references to strain, bottlenecks and power use cast current networks as inadequate
- speculation presented as fact confident predictions about future market size and ubiquity were stated as settled