Amazon Backs Lumotive in $59M Series B Round, Bringing Total VC Funding to Over $100M.

Amazon and Oman's sovereign wealth fund, ITHCA Group, have joined Lumotive's Series B round, bringing the total to $59 million. The startup's Light Control Metasurface solid-state chips can manipulate light electronically, with applications in autonomous vehicles and data centers. Lumotive has raised over $100 million in venture capital to date.

Lumotive, a startup specializing in programmable optics, has successfully closed its Series B funding round, bringing in Amazon and ITHCA Group as strategic investors. The round, which initially aimed to raise $45 million, has now reached $59 million, thanks to the additional backing from these prominent entities.

The company, based in Redmond, Washington, has developed Light Control Metasurface solid-state chips that can manipulate light electronically. These chips have the potential to revolutionize various industries, including autonomous vehicles and data centers. Lumotive CEO Sam Heidari noted that the startup saw significant demand for participation in the round, leading to its reopening for ITHCA Group and Amazon.

“Amazon, it has a lot of strategic value for us,” Heidari said. “We do appreciate the relationship more than the money.” The fresh funds will enable Lumotive to expand its sales and marketing efforts, as well as invest more in research and development.

Lumotive's technology allows for the electronic manipulation of light, offering a more cost-effective alternative to traditional methods such as Lidar. The company has purposefully kept its customer list small and focused, but with the new funding, it plans to accelerate its growth.

This investment comes at a time when venture capital funding in India is showing resilience, with a significant increase in the second quarter of 2025. India's VC investment rose to $3.5 billion across 355 deals in the second quarter of 2025, led by fintech, healthtech, and logistics sectors [3].

Meanwhile, OpenAI has announced a partnership with Oracle to develop additional data center capacity in the US, furthering its Stargate project. This expansion is part of a broader plan to power artificial intelligence workloads and is expected to create more than 100,000 jobs in construction and operations [2].

References:
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/22/amazon-backs-programmable-optics-startup-lumotive/
[2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-22/oracle-to-supply-openai-with-2-million-ai-chips-for-data-centers
[3] https://www.business-standard.com/finance/news/india-vc-funding-rises-to-3-5-billion-in-q2-2025-led-by-fintech-healthtech-125072100738_1.html