Relativity Networks Raises $4.6M to Scale Next-Gen Optical Fiber Tech

Relativity Networks, a provider of next-generation fiber optic technology, has raised $4.6 million in pre-seed funding to address the growing demand for data centers and their power requirements. The company’s technology aims to help the data industry meet energy challenges by expanding development beyond urban cores and into locations with more than abundant power, Relativity Networks said.

The company’s hollow-core fiber (HCF) technology allows data to move faster with lower latency than conventional fiber, thereby enabling data to travel 1.5x farther without influencing latency that throw multi-location data operations and applications out of sync. While traditional fiber optic cables typically limit data centers to within 60 km of each other due to latency constraints, Relativity Networks’ HCF technology extends this range to 90 km, the company said. This increased geographic flexibility allows organizations to strategically position their data centers closer to existing and emerging power sources.

Jason Eichenholz, Relativity Networks' co-founder and CEO (left), and Rodrigo Amezcua Correa, co-founder and CTO. Courtesy of Relativity Networks.

“Currently, new data centers can't be built fast enough to satisfy the rapidly expanding AI-driven economy and the lack of available power is an existential threat to fueling that growth,”' said Jason Eichenholz, Relativity Networks’ founder and CEO. “By moving data faster with lower latency at nearly the speed of light, we are providing the industry new geographic optionality to address the energy-intensive data needs of today's AI-driven digital economy.”

Eichenholz previously co-founded and took public lidar company Luminar. He holds more than 90 patents in optics and photonics-enabled technologies and has led the R&D and commercialization of numerous products.

Relativity Networks, founded in 2023 following Eichenholz’s time at Luminar, is commercializing patent-pending HCF technology originally developed by co-founder and CTO Rodrigo Amezcua at the University of Central Florida’s College of Optics and Photonics. The company’s pre-seed funding was raised by a group of private investors following an initial investment from Eichenholz. The company said that it has already secured multimillion dollar contracts and has deployed its technology in several U.S. field installations.