Swave Photonics, a Leuven-based augmented reality (AR) startup, today announced the close of its €27 million Series A funding round that will help develop their Holographic eXtended Reality (HXR) platform.
The funding will also enable a reality-first user experience for AI-powered AR smartglasses and heads-up displays.
The 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, Inc., as well as existing investors Qbic Fund, PMV, imec, and Luminate.
Swave previously raised a €10 million Seed round in 2023, which propelled the launch of Swave’s HXR technology, as well as the expansion of Swave’s team, which claims to leverage “the top minds in photonics and semiconductors“.
“This round will accelerate Swave’s product introductions as we continue to solve the challenges of today’s AR experiences through true holography,” said Mike Noonen, Swave CEO. “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.”
Founded in 2022, Swave is a spin-out from Imec that utilises CMOS chip technology for manufacturing for a reportedly cost-effective, scalable, and swift path to commercialisation.
Concretely, they develop chipsets to deliver reality-first spatial computing powered by AI. According to Swave, their HXR display technology is the first to achieve true holography by sculpting lightwaves into natural, high-resolution images. The proprietary technology allows for compact form factors with a natural viewing experience.
“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,” said Theo Marescaux, Swave co-founder and Chief Product Officer. “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.”
Swave’s HXR technology uses the “world’s smallest pixel” to shape light and sculpt high-quality 3D holographic images that create a reality-first user experience, where digital information interacts and adapts to the user’s surroundings. The images allow for the human vision system to process them naturally leveraging patented DynamicDepth technology.
According to Swave, AR devices currently being prototyped or on the market are all faced with challenges of high cost, uncomfortable size and weight, significant power usage, and visual phenomena like Vergence-Accomodation Conflict, which cause nausea or fatigue for users.
Whereas they argue, that Swave’s HXR technology not only solves these issues, but also eliminates the need for the most costly components, such as waveguides or varifocal lenses, inherently required for existing AR devices.
“With Swave’s seed funding, we successfully built our team, proved the capabilities of the technology, and completed prototype designs”, said Dmitri Choutov, co-founder and Chief Operating Officer. “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.”
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2025/01/seeing-is-believing-swave-photonics-raises-e27-million-for-augmented-reality-smart-glasses/
