(EE.Times.eu) Pixel Photonics, a German startup developing waveguide-integrated single-photon detectors, announced it has raised €1.45 million in seed funding. IQT News summarizes the announcement below.
The recent funding to Pixel Photonics adds to the recent €2.6 million research grant from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
Founded in 2020 as a spin-off from Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität (WWU) Münster, Pixel Photonics claims it builds scalable high-performance single-photon detectors based on superconducting nanowires. An approach that brings single-photon detection and integrated optics together.
The idea behind Pixel Photonics’ detector design originated from years of research by professors Wolfram Pernice and Carsten Schuck whose goal was to commercialize highly scalable single-photon detectors based on a waveguide-based SNSPD approach. Their work resulted in the sale of the first detector with four channels for research purposes earlier this year. Systems with 32 or more channels are expected to be available in the “near future”, the startup said.
Pixel Photonics targets applications ranging from optical quantum computing, quantum key distribution (QKD), microscopy to metrology and sensing.
The company said the funds will help expand the team (from eight people today) and its facilities at the Center for Nanotechnology (CeNTech) in Münster. The money will also be used to speed the commercialization of products.
Led by High-Tech Grürnderfonds, a seed investor for high-tech startups, and Quantonation, an early-stage venture fund dedicated to deep-physics and quantum startups, this round of financing includes the participation of Hendrik Sabert, serial founder, former venture capital manager and photonics expert.
Sandra K. Helsel, Ph.D. has been researching and reporting on frontier technologies since 1990. She has her Ph.D. from the University of Arizona.