Optalysis Secures £21 Million in Series A Funding

Leeds-based photonics specialist, Optalysis, has successfully raised £21 million in Series A funding. The company is collaborating with tech giants such as Google and IBM on a cutting-edge technology called Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE). FHE enables secure cloud-based processing and transmission of encrypted data across untrusted networks. Optalysis aims to introduce chiplet-based products utilizing this technology within three years.

FHE represents a significant breakthrough as it safeguards data while it's being processed, addressing a major vulnerability in cloud and remote computing. Unlike traditional encryption methods, FHE allows computations to be performed directly on encrypted data, maintaining its structure and ensuring confidentiality. Data is never decrypted or exposed, even during the processing phase. However, due to its complexity and high costs, FHE has been challenging to implement on a large scale. Optalysis claims to have developed a solution to this problem.

Investors in Optalysis include Imec's venture capital fund imec.xpand, Northern Gritstone (a fund established by the Universities of Leeds, Manchester, and Sheffield), and the Lingotto fund owned by the Agnelli family, totaling $3 billion. Notably, the non-executive chairman of the Lingotto fund is George Osborne, former UK Chancellor of the Exchequer. Optalysis intends to utilize the funds to expand its workforce from the current 18 employees, including contractors, to over 50 within the next year.