Optical computing startup Lumai has closed a $10 million funding round.

Led by Constructor Capital, the round also saw participation from PhotonVentures, Journey Ventures, LIFTT, Qubits Ventures, and State Farm Ventures.

The company said the funds would be used to support the next stage of its growth, including advancing product development, doubling its headcount, and expanding its presence in the US.

Founded in 2022 after spinning out from the University of Oxford, Lumai uses optical processing to overcome the scaling challenges of AI compute, bypassing the limitations associated with silicon GPUs and integrated photonics.

The company claims its technology will cut AI inference costs by a tenth while delivering 50x the performance of silicon-only accelerators and using 10 percent of the power required by AI data centers.

“The future of AI demands radical breakthroughs in computing. The cost of current LLMs is unsustainable, and next-generation AI won’t happen without a major shift,” said Tim Weil, CEO and co-founder at Lumai. “Lumai’s innovative optical computing design overcomes the scalability challenges that have held others back and dramatically reduces power consumption, which will drive down the cost of AI.”