xLight Raises $40 Million Series B to Revolutionize Semiconductor Manufacturing
Funding enables prototype development of next generation light source for advanced semiconductor manufacturing
xLight, the American company building the world's most powerful lasers, today announced it has closed an oversubscribed $40M Series B equity raise. The round was led by Playground Global, an early-stage venture capital firm investing in entrepreneurs who have developed breakthroughs in frontier technologies, and joined by Boardman Bay Capital Management, a leading investment manager specializing in high-growth opportunities across transformative technology subsectors. Morpheus Ventures and others also joined the round. This funding further enables xLight to develop the world's most powerful extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) free electron lasers (FEL), which will revolutionize advanced semiconductor manufacturing and unlock other critical economic and national security applications.
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xLight Leadership Team at the office of venture capital firm Playground Global in Palo Alto, California. From left to right: VP of Accelerator Systems Bruce Dunham, VP for Global Policy and Public Sector Partnerships Ben Purser, VP of Photon Systems Chris Anderson, Chief Executive Officer and Chief Technology Officer Nicholas Kelez, Chief Commercial Officer Kevin Heidrich, and VP of Engineering and Industrialization Andrew Burrill. Courtesy of xLight/Stephanie Cowan.
"xLight is on a mission to build a transformational new light source for semiconductor manufacturing that addresses the key challenges facing the industry today – cost, capabilities, and capacity. This round will equip the company with the capital needed to complete detailed design and kickstart construction of our full-scale prototype," said Nicholas Kelez, CEO and CTO of xLight. "Advanced semiconductor manufacturing is approaching a key inflection point – together with our partners across the National Lab and semiconductor ecosystem, and with the support of our investors, we will commercialize free electron lasers and help reclaim American leadership in semiconductor manufacturing."
"xLight represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to restore American leadership in one of the most critical technologies underpinning the semiconductor industry," said Pat Gelsinger, Executive Chairman of the Board, xLight and General Partner, Playground Global. "By delivering an energy‑efficient EUV laser with tenfold improvements over existing technologies, xLight has the potential to drive the next era of Moore's Law – keeping chip scaling alive, accelerating fab productivity, and anchoring this foundational capability in the U.S. supply chain."
"xLight's breakthrough technology delivers a real edge for next-generation semiconductor manufacturing," said Peter Barrett, General Partner and co-founder at Playground Global. "With AI driving unprecedented demand for more powerful and complex chips, the industry needs a step change in productivity. By applying proven accelerator physics in a novel way, xLight's EUV FEL platform has the potential to enable not just more efficient production, but entirely new kinds of devices. It's a bold leap forward, and one that will help reignite Moore's Law."
"We believe the semiconductor manufacturing industry is on the precipice of the next major dislocation and xLight is perfectly positioned to capitalize on that shift," said Will Graves, Chief Investment Officer, Boardman Bay Capital Management. "The company's platform has the potential to reshape how fabs think about light, manufacturing capabilities, and scalability. We're proud to partner with a team pushing the boundaries of what's possible in advanced laser light sources."
"xLight represents exactly the kind of transformative technology we seek at Morpheus Ventures—a company that's not just disrupting its market, but fundamentally redefining what's possible," said Howard Ko, Partner, Morpheus Ventures. "The company's deeply experienced team, coupled with the incredible technology they've developed under Nicholas' leadership, uniquely position the company for hypergrowth in the years to come, and we're thrilled to be one of their partners."
The company continues to execute against its business goals, as evidenced by the ongoing partnerships with the Cornell Laboratory for Accelerator-based ScienceS and Education (CLASSE), the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, three globally recognized, leading research facilities. In the last two years, the company has completed key systems designs, including subsystem prototyping and first articles, and established a working relationship with technical leaders at ASML.
xLight's work with CLASSE focuses primarily on research and development, with the ultimate goal of commercializing technologies developed by Cornell's BNL ERL Test Accelerator (CBETA). The joint venture with LANL, funded by New Mexico's TRGR Technology Readiness Initiative, is focused on the application of modern machine learning techniques to enable the automation of a large-scale accelerator. Large-scale accelerators like those under cooperative development at LANL are an integral component of xLight's technical roadmap. The company's collaboration with Fermilab is focused on superconducting radio frequency cavity and cryomodule development and testing – two particle accelerator technologies that the lab mastered over decades.
About xLight
xLight was founded in 2021 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. The company's mission is to commercialize particle accelerator driven free electron lasers (FEL) for critical US economic and national security applications. xLight is led by a group of deeply experienced technologists and semiconductor industry veterans with a long track record of building complex technical systems. Our team has decades of experience designing, building, and deploying free electron lasers across a wide range of applications, from research and development to national security missions. Learn more at www.xlight.com
About Playground Global
Playground Global is a deep tech venture capital firm with $1.2 billion under management, backing early-stage startups solving foundational challenges in next-generation compute, automation, energy transition, and engineered biology. Founded in 2015 and based in Palo Alto, Playground partners closely with technical and scientific founders to turn breakthrough ideas into lasting companies. The firm's portfolio includes PsiQuantum, MosaicML (acquired by Databricks), d-Matrix, Agility Robotics, Ideon, Ultima Genomics, Strand Therapeutics, and xLight. Learn more at www.playground.vc.
About Boardman Bay Capital Management
Boardman Bay is a venture capital and technology investment firm focused on backing the next generation of hard tech and semiconductor innovators. With a track record of supporting companies at the forefront of AI infrastructure, optical and photonic systems, chip design, and data movement, Boardman Bay has been an early investor in transformative platforms including Ayar Labs, Groq, xLight, and Credo (NASDAQ:CRDO). The firm operates a family of specialized venture funds that provide strategic, concentrated exposure to the core technologies reshaping global compute and connectivity. Founded in 2012, Boardman Bay combines deep domain expertise with a disciplined investment approach—across public and private portfolios—to help build enduring, category-defining businesses. Learn more at boardmanbay.com
About Morpheus Ventures
Founded in 2016, Morpheus Ventures is one of the largest early-stage investors in Los Angeles, and is investing in the disruption of large markets across the technology landscape from consumer to enterprise technologies including data-powered platforms, high performance compute platforms, AI, machine learning and enterprise SaaS. The firm is headquartered in Los Angeles and backs great entrepreneurs worldwide. Learn more at https://morpheus.com
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