Morphotonics raises €40M to expand its display tech into data centers

Morphotonics, a Netherlands-based developer of nanoimprint lithography (NIL) tools, said it has secured €40 million in an extended financing round to scale production and expand into optical components for data centers. The round, which began in 2024 and was raised in multiple tranches, lists 3M Ventures, Innovation Industries, BOM and Invest-NL among its backers; the European Innovation Council Fund, Ernij Next and the European Investment Bank also participated.

The company’s NIL approach fabricates a reusable “stamp” that is pressed into photosensitive materials to form fine optical structures. That process can make waveguides—thin glass or plastic elements that steer light into a user’s eye—used in augmented-reality headsets and other display applications. Morphotonics says its tools and processes have been applied to waveguides for products such as the Meta Ray-Ban Display, Even Reality and Magic Leap.

Morphotonics has spent about 12 years developing its technology and currently generates roughly 90% of revenue from hardware sales, with 10–15 systems deployed around the world. Management said the company expects deployments to rise to about 50 systems over the next two to three years, which should also expand its services and licensing revenue. The firm has a manufacturing footprint concentrated in Asia, maintaining teams in China, Taiwan, South Korea and the U.S.

CEO Hugo Da Silva, who joined in September 2024, said the company has more than doubled headcount to about 60 employees since that time and plans to grow to roughly 70–75. Morphotonics is building a next-generation machine designed to produce more than 6 million waveguides annually; shipments of that system are slated to begin early next year. Beyond displays, the funding will support pilots and productization aimed at co-packaged optics—components for data centers that use photonic integrated circuits to move data with light—where customers have validated the technology though no machines have yet shipped for that application.