Lumotive, a developer of programmable optical semiconductor products, has closed a $45 million Series B funding round to accelerate sales growth of its Light Control Metasurface (LCM) technology. The company plans to use the funds to strengthen its international presence to provide responsive localized support and customized solutions for specific technical business needs. Lumotive’s LCM chips guide photons by using the light-bending properties of metamaterial surfaces. Nanostructures smaller than the wavelength of light work together to both shape and steer optical energy in any direction within the field of view. The technology is manufactured using conventional silicon fabrication processes, which enables scalability. Earlier this month, Lumotive established a partnership with E-Photonics and forged agreements with Hokuyo Automatic and Namuga. The company began a collaboration with Skywater Technology last year on the production of Lumotive’s solid-state optical beamforming technology. The round included new investors Swisscom Ventures, East Bridge, EDOM, Grazia, Hokuyo Inc., and TSVC as well as support from existing investors such as Gates Frontier, MetaVC Partners, Quan Funds, USAA, and HiMax Inc. Lumotive raised a $13 million round two years ago, which brought the total amount raised at the time to $56 million.