Semiconductor firm Retym has officially launched and secured new funding.
Founded in 2021, the company this week emerged from stealth with more than $180 million raised across multiple rounds to develop its new Coherent DSP.
In the latest financing round, the company secured $75 million in Series D funding, led by Spark Capital. Existing investors Kleiner Perkins, Mayfield, and Fidelity Investments, all participated in the round.
“As AI infrastructure demands intensify, Retym is well-positioned to lead in delivering cost-effective and power-efficient DSP innovation for the rapidly evolving landscape,” said Sachin Gandhi, Retym’s co-founder and CEO. “We’re excited to collaborate with customers and ecosystem partners to integrate our DSPs into high-speed transceiver designs. With groundbreaking product announcements ahead, this is only the beginning.”
Pronounced “Re-Time”, the California-based company Retym specializes in programmable coherent Digital Signal Processor (DSP) solutions for cloud and AI infrastructure.
A DSP is an integrated circuit used in optical networks that converts analog signals to digital and encodes digital data into various light signals. A coherent DSP is a specialized type of DSP that enhances signal quality and allows for higher data rates and longer transmission distances – important for high-speed optical networks. Chipmaker Marvell Technology is currently the main player in the DSP space.
Retym said the Series D funding will support scaling to production and continued product development advancements.
“As AI workloads continue to scale exponentially, they’re creating unprecedented demands on critical infrastructure,” said James Kuklinski, general partner, Spark Capital. “Retym’s exceptional team is uniquely positioned to address these challenges, developing products that will enable significant advancements in performance and scale. We’re excited to partner with Retym as they execute on their vision to deliver solutions that will help unlock the next wave of AI innovation.
Reuters reports Retym hardware is being manufactured by TSMC using its 5nm process. Its chips are reportedly in the testing and validation phase.
The publication added Retym's first chip will be designed to move data around from a range of 10 kilometers and 120 kilometers, but will be optimized for 30 kilometers to 40 kilometers.
Gandhi was previously co-founder and COO of dryv.io – which was acquired by Synaptics in 2019. Prior to that, he was co-founder and COO of Xpliant, which was acquired by Cavium in 2014. Prior to founding Retym, co-founder and CTO Dr. Roni El-Bahar was CTO at Huawei’s Israel Research Center.
In a LinkedIn blog post, El-Bahar said when Retym was founded, coherent optics were the “go-to technology” for high-performance, long-haul, high-capacity networks. But they are increasingly used for shorter distances for data center interconnections.
