Collaboration will Improve Chip Design and Development to De-risk Early-Stage Investments

Rochester, New York, November 22, 2022 - Luminate NY - the world’s largest accelerator for startups developing optics, photonics, and imaging (OPI) enabled technologies - announced today that it has formed a strategic partnership with Silicon Catalyst, the world's only incubator focused on accelerating semiconductor solutions. Under the joint partnership, the two organizations will work closely together to recruit the most innovative early-stage startups into their accelerator programs to allow for concurrent participation. This will expand the support ecosystem for founders working on industry solutions that are enabled by OPI and semiconductor chip design to ultimately reduce the cost and complexity of development.

“Critical technologies such as silicon photonics, lasers, and electronic packaging rely on the integration of semiconductor technology and photonics. These complex integrations are the building blocks of emerging applications like autonomous sensing, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and quantum applications,” said Sujatha Ramanujan, Managing Director, Luminate NY. “This partnership will help to close the development and manufacturing gaps that often exist when working across multiple technical disciplines to bring novel technologies to market.” The partnership will also improve access to funding opportunities for early-stage companies. Startups developing OPI-based products receive $100,000 upon admission to Luminate and have the chance to compete for up to $2 million on follow-on funding to support their growth. In addition, over the past 8 years, Silicon Catalyst has enabled access to over $400M in funding to its portfolio companies, as well as over $200 million derived from both in-kind services and grants.