Participated · Series C · Jun 2026

HyperLight develops high-performance integrated photonics based on thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN), commercialized as its TFLN Chiplet™ Platform. The platform targets a range of optical interconnect applications including data center pluggables, coherent datacom and telecom modules, and co-packaged optics, and offers products supporting 200G-per-lane operation with 400G-per-lane solutions now sampling. The company emphasizes ultra-high modulation bandwidth, CMOS-level drive voltage, and ultra-low optical loss to reduce power consumption at higher lane speeds. HyperLight has established a strategic manufacturing partnership with UMC and Wavetek for high-volume foundry production on both 6-inch and 8-inch wafers. With the $80 million Series C, the company plans to expand manufacturing capacity, accelerate customer qualification, scale its platform, and deepen partnerships across foundry, semiconductor, networking, and systems integration domains.

Participated · Equity · Sep 2023

Vaxess provides a platform that combines a proprietary microarray patch and applicator capable of delivering diverse therapeutic payloads. Its dissolvable microarray tips are made from advanced biomaterials that enable precise dose-delivery control and can be modified for different payloads. The patch does not require refrigeration, which the company says enables delivery to low-resource settings. Vaxess intends to use the new funding to advance its work on GLP-1 and to expand manufacturing capabilities to support its lead program. The company also plans to support new partnerships for additional therapeutics. The company is led by CEO Rachel Sha and is based in Woburn, MA. Vaxess Technologies is a Cambridge, MA life sciences company developing a shelf‑stable MIMIX skin patch for vaccines and therapeutics. Its MIMIX™ platform pairs a proprietary microarray patch and applicator with dissolvable microarray tips made from advanced biomaterials to enable high levels of dose delivery control and payload flexibility. The patch does not require refrigeration, facilitating delivery to low‑resource settings. The company intends to use the funding to advance its GLP‑1 program, continue in vivo work with mRNA, and expand and scale manufacturing process capabilities. Vaxess raised $12M in the reported round, and its total equity and non‑dilutive funding now exceeds $90M. Rachel Sha has been appointed CEO as Michael Schrader steps down. Vaxess is developing a shelf-stable, potentially self-applicable vaccine patch using its MIMIX™ sustained release patch technology. The patch is engineered for stability, does not require refrigeration, and can be shipped to and applied in low-resource settings. The company is focusing on translating mRNA lipid nanoparticles stored in silk fibroin matrices into its patch and accelerating mRNA vaccine patch development. In April it reported mRNA stability results showing silk fibroin formulations protect mRNA LNPs through drying and maintain in vivo potency after storage at 37°C for two weeks. Vaxess has raised grant and venture capital funding from groups including RA Capital, The Engine, BARDA, DARPA, NIH, NSF and the Gates Foundation, bringing total equity and non-dilutive funding to more than $80M following the latest raise. The company has a collaboration with AstraZeneca to evaluate an RNA-based pandemic influenza prototype vaccine in patch format and is led by co-founder and CEO Michael Schrader. Vaxess is a Cambridge, MA–based life sciences company developing a shelf-stable vaccine patch designed for potential self-application. Its core product is the MIMIX sustained-release patch technology, which delivers controlled release to simulate the pace of a natural infection and boost immune responses. Engineered for stability, the patch does not require refrigeration and can be shipped to and applied in low-resource settings. In December the company published initial results from a phase 1 trial in 45 healthy adults testing an H1N1 antigen from partner GC Biopharma delivered via the MIMIX Patch, evaluating safety, reactogenicity, tolerability and immunogenicity at two dose levels (7.5 μg and 15 μg) versus placebo. Vaxess is led by CEO Michael Schrader and intends to use newly raised capital to accelerate development efforts. The recent financing and trial data position the company to advance clinical development of its shelf-stable, self-administered vaccine technology. Vaxess Technologies is developing the MIMIX sustained-release patch technology to administer vaccines and therapeutics. The patch provides controlled release that simulates the pace of a natural infection, producing a slower, stronger, and enduring immune response to boost vaccine effectiveness. Engineered for stability, the patch does not require refrigeration and can be shipped to and applied in low-resource settings. Vaxess recently launched a phase 1 trial for an H1 influenza vaccine delivered by VX-103 and intends to use new funding to support that trial. The company is led by CEO Michael Schrader and is based in Cambridge, MA. Vaxess raised $27M in a Series B to advance its clinical development efforts.

Participated · Series A · Jul 2023

VEIR designs superconducting power-delivery products that provide up to 10× the power of traditional cables at the same voltage, enabling a smaller electrical footprint for AI-focused data centers and higher-capacity transmission corridors. Its solutions aim to improve data-center efficiency, reduce server latency, simplify campus electrical designs, and enable existing transmission lines to carry significantly more power within the same corridor. VEIR targets customers across data centers, utilities, and renewable energy developers to accelerate grid resilience and global decarbonization. The company positions superconductors as a way to relieve interconnection bottlenecks and integrate new generation onto the grid. VEIR is based in Woburn, Mass., and is pursuing commercialization of its product portfolio. The company recently closed a major financing to support those commercialization efforts. Veir develops next-generation superconducting electric transmission technology designed to carry much higher electrical currents with negligible losses by cooling lines with liquid nitrogen. The company’s proprietary system aims to increase transmission capacity relative to the current grid while using existing rights of way, which can ease siting and permitting for developers. Veir operates an outdoor demonstration of its technology and is focused on delivering full product specifications for each subsystem. Led by CEO Tim Heidel, the company plans to use new funding to advance product development across its subsystems. No revenue or user metrics were disclosed in the article. Veir is a Boston, MA–based company led by CEO Adam Wallen that develops an evaporative cryogenic cooling technology platform for high-temperature superconductor electricity transmission. Its platform is designed to increase the amount of power transmitted at lower voltages in smaller right-of-ways, connecting low-cost renewable resources to demand centers. The company raised a $10M Series A, bringing total funding to date to more than $12M. The round was led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, with participation from existing investor Congruent Ventures and new investor The Engine. Veir intends to use the capital to scale its team—hiring technical talent in cryogenics and the energy industry as well as operational and sales staff—and to begin developing and testing critical subsystems required for grid deployment. The company also plans to establish a physical development site in Massachusetts to support commercial development and testing.

Participated · Series B · Jun 2023

Celestial AI develops the Photonic Fabric, an optical interconnect technology platform that provides seamless chip-to-chip to server-to-server networking for AI computing systems. The Photonic Fabric is designed to deliver a generational leap in bandwidth, low latency and energy efficiency compared with copper-based interconnects. The company positions the technology as foundational for data center computing, networking and memory systems to enable next‑generation AI architectures. Celestial AI plans to accelerate commercial deployment, strengthen its volume manufacturing supply chain, scale production capabilities, and deepen strategic partnerships with foundries, including TSMC. Company leadership says the technology addresses the data‑movement limits of copper interconnects and enables system designs that can scale processors while reducing power consumption. Financially, Celestial AI has raised $520 million to date, including a final close of a $255 million Series C1 to support commercialization and supply‑chain scaling. Celestial AI is the creator of the Photonic Fabric, an optical interconnect technology platform for compute and memory. The Photonic Fabric enables disaggregation of compute and memory and, the company says, delivers over 25x greater bandwidth and memory capacity while reducing latency and power consumption by up to 10x versus existing optical interconnect alternatives and copper. The company reports successful validation of the technology in silicon and says this has driven tremendous demand from hyperscalers. Amid growing demand for generative AI and next‑generation data centers, Celestial AI positions the Photonic Fabric as a solution to constraints including utility power availability, memory capacity and high cost of operation. The company plans to use the Series C proceeds to execute multiple large‑scale customer collaborations focused on commercializing the Photonic Fabric platform. Celestial AI presents the Photonic Fabric as the foundational technology for optically scalable, disaggregated data center compute and memory to enable sustainable and profitable AI advancements. Celestial AI has developed a photonics-based optical interconnect architecture for compute-to-compute, compute-to-memory and on-chip data transmission aimed at addressing data-movement bottlenecks in AI workloads. The company says its photonic fabric scales across multiple-chip systems, is compatible with industry interconnect standards such as CXL and PCIe, and can enable memory disaggregation. Celestial claims its technology delivers 25x higher bandwidth and 10x lower latency and power consumption than optical alternatives and can reduce the electricity spent on data movement, indirectly boosting a chip's effective compute capacity. It offers the interconnect through a licensing program and reports engagement with several "tier-one" customers, including hyperscalers and processor and memory companies. Celestial also sells an AI accelerator chip, Orion, built on its photonics architecture, though the article notes engineering challenges remain for photonics-based chips at scale. Founded by David Lazovsky and Preet Virk with architect Phil Winterbottom, the company began as a portfolio company of The Engine. The company has around 100 employees and expects to grow to about 130 by the end of the year. Celestial AI builds ML/HPC accelerators based on its proprietary Photonic Fabric™ that uses integrated photonics for high-bandwidth, low-power data movement and optical access to memory and compute. Its core product line is the Orion AI accelerator family, which combines electronic compute with photonic data movement and accompanying system software for simpler, efficient mapping of data and compute. The company says this hybrid approach reduces power spent on data movement and enables redistribution of power to compute, improving performance, latency, and TCO versus electronic-only systems. Celestial AI positions its software and multi-chip scaling as competitive differentiators as AI model complexity grows and cites an Omida addressable market projection of over $70 billion in 2025. The company plans to use new capital to expand its global engineering team, advance product development, and pursue strategic supplier engagements, including Broadcom, to commercialize Orion products. No revenue or user metrics are reported in the article.

Led · Seed · Mar 2023

Droplet Biosciences develops sensitive cancer diagnostics by leveraging lymphatic fluid accessed via a non-invasive process that collects surgical drain fluid after tumor resection. The company says this lymphatic fluid, rich in T-cells, proteins, and other biomarkers, can reveal the body’s immune response to cancer earlier and with greater sensitivity than blood. Its first clinical application targets detection of residual disease in head and neck cancer patients immediately after surgery. Founded in 2021 in Cambridge, MA, the company was started by CEO Theresa Tribble and CSO Wendy Winckler, PhD, along with scientific co-founders Jose P. Zevallos, MD, MPH; Eugene N. Myers, M.D., Chair of Otolaryngology at the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC; and Aadel Chaudhuri, MD, PhD. The company raised $8M in Seed funding and intends to use the proceeds to accelerate its development efforts.