Silicon photonics startup Salience Labs has closed a $30 million Series A funding round.

Led by ICM HPQC Fund and Applied Ventures, the round also saw participation from Braavos alongside existing investors Oxford Sciences Enterprises, Cambridge Innovation Capital, and Silicon Catalyst.

Salience Labs was founded in 2021 and the Oxford, UK-based company focuses on the development of photonic solutions to support AI data center connectivity.

In a statement, the company said the funding to further the development of its optical switches, which it believes has the potential to enable new interconnect network architectures.

“What our customers want is a photonic switch to connect their AI clusters that is compatible with existing infrastructure while delivering high bandwidth, low latency, and significant power savings. The completion of this round will further our development and help us bring our product to customers to enable not just the savings, but large cluster connectivity,” said Vaysh Kewada, co-founder and CEO of Salience Labs. “We are also excited to be working closely with our strategic investors who are industry leaders to advance our go-to-market schedule.”

In addition to closing the Series A funding round, Salience Labs also announced the appointment of a new CFO and board member.

Bonnie Tomei, who previously held the role of CFO at Spectra7 Microsystems, joined Salience Labs as CFO last year, while Dr. William Jeffrey joins the company’s board having previously served as the Director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the US.