Morphotonics, a Brainport-region equipment maker specialising in large-area nanoimprint lithography, has secured over €40 million through a Series B funding round. The Veldhoven-based firm intends to deploy the capital toward expanding production capacity for machinery that fabricates waveguides destined for artificial intelligence glasses and augmented reality devices.
The investment consortium included returning backers 3M Ventures, Innovation Industries, and BOM, all of whom expanded their stakes. State-owned Invest-NL entered as a significant fresh participant, alongside the European Innovation Council Fund, Ernij Next from the Netherlands, and the European Investment Bank.
This funding round represents a continuation of the Series B that commenced in 2024, when an initial close exceeding $10 million was led by BOM and Innovation Industries alongside 3M.
The waveguide manufacturing challenge
Waveguides—the transparent optical elements responsible for projecting digital imagery into a wearer's visual field—are integral to most display-equipped smart glasses. Manufacturing them at the volumes demanded by the consumer electronics sector remains time-intensive and expensive using conventional production approaches.
Morphotonics addresses this bottleneck through its equipment platform. The process involves using a mould to imprint micro- and nanoscale features into liquid resin, followed by ultraviolet curing, which allows the system to replicate these structures consistently across expansive panels. This methodology enables manufacturers to generate substantially more components per production cycle while reducing per-unit expenses.
The company's Cypris platform targets high-volume waveguide manufacturing. According to Morphotonics, revenues increased threefold between 2024 and 2025, during which period the firm deployed numerous full-scale manufacturing installations for clients across multiple continents.
Market momentum and deployment strategy
Industry analysts project substantial growth in the smart eyewear sector. Counterpoint Research forecasts that consumer wearables will generate in excess of $1 trillion in revenue spanning 2026 through 2032, with smart eyewear specifically anticipated to reach $44 billion annually by 2032.
Everyone is talking about AI glasses right now. AI is moving off the screen and into the real world, into glasses, spatial systems, and a new generation of intelligent devices. But these and similar devices will not reach mass adoption unless the optical components inside them can be manufactured at consumer-electronics scale.
Hugo da Silva, CEO of Morphotonics
The fresh capital will be allocated toward expanding Cypris production throughput, advancing product capabilities, growing the engineering, commercial, and customer service divisions, and fortifying relationships with component suppliers and service infrastructure.
Morphotonics collaborates with device and component manufacturers based in China, Taiwan, the United States, and Europe. The company operates a lab-to-fab partner ecosystem that enables prospective customers to evaluate its manufacturing methodology before committing to equipment purchases.
Morphotonics is addressing a clear industrial challenge: how to manufacture increasingly complex optical components at the scale and cost required by consumer markets. The company has made significant progress in a short time, and this investment will support its move from technology development into broader industrial deployment.
Johan Stins, Sr. Investment Manager at Invest NL
Beyond smart glasses
Morphotonics indicates that its technology extends beyond eyewear applications. The platform could manufacture sensor and display components, as well as photonic elements for next-generation data center infrastructure, including co-packaged optics. This positioning aligns the company with a growing ecosystem of Dutch photonics specialists attracting investor attention in the Eindhoven region.
Source: The Next Web
