Optical network startup Lumilens has completed a Series C funding round of over $700 million, with a valuation of $5.51 billion.

Optical network startup Lumilens announced it has completed over $700 million in Series C funding, with a valuation reaching $5.51 billion. The round was co-led by Atreides Management, Bain Capital Ventures, Meritech, Seligman Ventures, and Spark Capital, bringing the company’s total raised capital to over $900 million. Headquartered in San Jose, California, Lumilens designs and manufactures optical and networking products that enable data centers to achieve faster data transmission with lower power consumption. The company said it has been supplying a hyperscale cloud provider under a multi-billion-dollar deal, but declined to disclose the specific name, only confirming the client is one of the four major hyperscale cloud providers. CEO Ankur Singla pointed out: "The bottleneck in AI has shifted from how many GPUs you can purchase to how many GPUs you can connect. Hyperscale cloud providers have told us they need two key things: a significant increase in their existing network’s optical capacity, and a path to connect thousands of GPUs directly into the same cluster." Lumilens also revealed it has recruited executives and engineers from firms including Cisco, Juniper, Meta, Marvell, Lumentum, and Coherent to enhance its expertise in photonics and large-scale networking. The proceeds from this funding round will be used to expand the company’s engineering and manufacturing operations.