Amsterdam-based Optics11, a fiber optics startup, has raised €17m to help protect Europe’s energy grid and subsea cables.
Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, there has been growing concern around the potential sabotage of undersea cables, which facilitate more than 95% of internet traffic between continents.
Founded in 2011, Optics11 uses fiber optic cables and advanced detection software to monitor security breaches and other threats to energy and maritime infrastructure. The company’s latest funding round was led by deeptech VC FORWARD.one and energy VC SET Ventures, with participation from deeptech VC Join Capital and deeptech VC Value Creation Capital.
“We listen with light,” says Paul Heiden, Optics11’s CEO. “Our software interprets what it is that we exactly see. So we can hear that it is, for instance, a ship, but sonar software can then tell that ship is a Russian ship.”
Gaps in international law make it difficult to bring cable cutters to justice.
“A few years ago, the Russians started mapping the infrastructure and lately they started a sort of hooliganism,” says Heiden. “They were breaking cables with dragging anchors to undermine peace in our society.”
But sabotage isn’t the only issue. Heiden says that a “significant problem that we hardly discuss” is a rapidly ageing base of high-voltage (HV) transformers, an essential part of the power network which changes electricity from one voltage to another to ensure safe transmission.
According to PTR, a research firm which specialises in the energy sector, 40% of Europe’s transformers have already exceeded their life expectancy.
As well as detecting foreign attacks, Heiden says that Optics11’s technology can detect the very first signs of degeneration in transformers.
“We’re really addressing the resilience of a critical infrastructure that’s threatened either just by age and degeneration or is threatened by state actors that try to destroy that infrastructure,” says Heiden.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/optics11-raise-underwater-cables/
