Astrape Networks, a developer of integrated photonics-based optical networks, has completed a €7.9 million ($8.9 million) seed round, which includes a €2.5 million grant from the European Innovation Council. The round was co-led by PhotonVentures, Join Capital, and Brabant Development Agency, with participation from Shift Invest.

Founded in 2022 as a spin-off from Eindhoven University of Technology and incubated by HighTechXL, Astrape aims to optimize short-distance data network performance, addressing critical performance bottlenecks by introducing dynamic optical bypass possibilities seamlessly into any datacenter network. According to the company, its technology enables networks to handle 50% more traffic while requiring fewer servers for the same computational load. It delivers 2x higher utilization rates, expands hop capacity from 0 to 2, and scales to support over 16 million GPUs/xPUs per network — all while reducing energy consumption by 60%.

According to Astrape Networks’ website, its EFFINITI products use a highly modular design for simple maintenance, upgradability, and adaptability to emerging technologies. The technology handles both predictable and unpredictable traffic, and allows for in-network computation.

In September 2023, Astrape secured a pre-seed funding round of €1.6 million, that it said it would use to develop sustainable data centers by eliminating multiple electrical-optical conversions during use. The company said at the time that it will use the funds to develop PICs to build faster, cooler, and more energy-efficient data centers.