Mesh Optical Technologies, a fast-growing advanced materials startup in Los Angeles, recently wrapped up a $50 million Series A funding round. Thrive Capital led this extraordinary investment. The company was founded by co-founders and former collaborators at SpaceX Travis Brashears, Cameron Robinson, and Serena Grown-Haeberberli. Their mission is to change the future of optical communications, one innovative optical transceiver at a time.
The company’s cutting edge technology was first deployed to ensure seamless communication between thousands of Starlink internet satellites. With this foundational experience, Mesh Optical Technologies plans to manufacture up to a thousand units per day within the year. The co-founders are dreaming pretty big. So, they’re shooting to get themselves qualified for those bulk orders by 2027 and 2028, thinking that’ll leave them with a solid first-mover advantage in that competitive market.
To address this risk, the startup has begun developing its supply chain beyond China. These operating plans seek to disrupt the current Chinese firms’ and suppliers’ (state-sponsored) stranglehold on the optical transceiver market. This strategic move comes as a response to reduce the risks of growing geopolitical tensions and supply chain instability.
Mesh Optical Technologies has come up with a radically different design that eliminates a conventional but power-hogging part. We expect that this development will lower power consumption in GPU clusters by 3% to 5%. This breakthrough design innovation is especially welcome news with the increasing demand for more efficient components in both new and existing data centers.
Travis Brashears, CEO of Mesh Optical Technologies, said the company shares the city’s aspirations.
“The world has primarily focused on [radio frequencies] for a long time. We want to be at the precipice of transition from RF to photonics…we want to interconnect everything, and not just computers, but that’s where we’re starting.” – Travis Brashears
Cameron Robinson, serving as President, emphasized the scale of their ambitions:
“Someone will brag about a million GPU cluster; you have to multiply by four to five for the number of transceivers in that cluster.” – Cameron Robinson
Philip Clark highlighted concerns regarding reliance on foreign suppliers for critical technology components:
“If AI is the most important technology in several generations (which we believe to be true), to have critical parts of AI data center capex run through misaligned/competitive countries is a problem.” – Philip Clark
Mesh Optical Technologies’ dynamic thinking inspires cutting-edge production and sharp tactical development. Consequently, they are poised to absorb and deliver powerful advances to the optics communication industry. The combination of their efficiency push and independence from legacy supply chains will likely define tomorrow’s industry standard.