De Brauw advises SMART Photonics on attracting EUR 100 million in additional funding

De Brauw acted as sole advisor to SMART Photonics Holding B.V., the Dutch foundry for photonic integrated circuits, in securing an additional round of funding of EUR 100 million from a group of strategic industry and financial Dutch players and the Dutch government.

Among the group of new lenders are strategic players from the semiconductor industry (ASML, NXP and VDL Groep) as well as financial institutions (ING, BOP Impact Ventures and Deep Tech Fund, which is part of Invest-NL and partly funded by the ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy). Previous investors, including Innovation Industries, BOM, PhotonDelta and KPN Ventures have joined in this funding round again. The government of the Netherlands separately provides EUR 60 million public funding as part of the approved National Growth Fund project PhotonDelta.

With this new round of funding, SMART Photonics will be able to strengthen its role as the leading manufacturer of next generation chips in a growing, resilient European photonic value chain. SMART Photonics will use the funds to extend its manufacturing capabilities and accelerate the development of the company’s photonic integrated chip technology platforms and its Process Design Kits (PDKs).