Swave's HXR chip. [Image: Swave Photonics]
On 3 January, Belgium-based startup Swave Photonics announced that it had raised €27 million (US$28.3 million) in series A funds to advance the company’s 3D holographic display platform. The technology will be used to create augmented-reality (AR) displays that could bypass the limitations of current AR devices. These include high cost, significant power use, large size and weight, and user motion sickness, which is caused when the brain receives mismatching cues between vergence and accommodation.
“This round will accelerate Swave’s product introductions as we continue to solve the challenges of today’s AR experiences through true holography,” said Swave CEO Mike Noonen in a press release. “We are thrilled with continued support from our existing investors and our new investors. They recognize that Swave uniquely brings together semiconductor, holographic and AI technologies in a way that will deliver cost-effective and truly useful solutions.”
Award-winning tech
Swave was launched in 2022 and spun out from imec, an international research and development organization headquartered in Belgium that focuses on nanoelectronics and digital technology. The company’s recent funding round was led by imec.xpand and SFPIM Relaunch, Belgium.
Other series A investors include new backers EIC Fund, Belgium; IAG Capital Partners, USA; and Murata Electronics North America, Inc., USA, along with existing Belgian investors Qbic Fund, PMV and imec, and the US-based Luminate. The fresh infusion of capital comes after Swave raised US$10.4 million in seed funding in 2023 to expand its team and launch its proprietary holographic extended reality (HXR) platform.
Introduced by Swave in April 2024, the HXR technology was recently selected as an honoree at the CES 2025 Innovation Awards taking place from 7 to 10 January in Las Vegas, NV, USA. The awards recognize outstanding design and engineering in 33 consumer technology product categories, including XR Technologies and Accessories (the category in which Swave was honored).
How it works
The company says it is the first chipset in the world to create holographic images for AR devices that will enable AI-powered spatial computing.
The HXR chipset is designed to meet industry-wide AR design goals for size, weight, field of view and brightness. With a pixel pitch of less than 300 nm, the platform is small enough to steer light and sculpt vivid, high-resolution images. The company says it is the first chipset in the world to create holographic images for AR devices that will enable AI-powered spatial computing. The technology uses a nonvolatile phase change material as a “pixel” on a standard CMOS semiconductor process, creating 3D holography up to 64 gigapixels.
Because it achieves holography through light diffraction and interference, HXR allows the human brain and eyes to process images naturally without waveguides, varifocal lenses or stereoscopy—elements that can add bulk to AR devices, raise costs and trigger headaches and nausea among users due to the vergence‒accommodation conflict.
“The principles of holography were invented more than 75 years ago, but it has been impossible to realize the full potential of this technology so far,” said Gordon Wetzstein, Stanford University, USA. “The holographic displays developed by Swave will have a transformative impact on information displays for smart glasses and beyond.”
Blending virtual and real worlds
According to Swave, applications powered by HXR gigapixel technology will be capable of passing the visual Turing test, a development that would make virtual reality nearly indistinguishable from the real world. In addition to smart glasses, such form factors could include head-up displays, which offer line-of-sight information through transparent surfaces, and “video walls” that would enable glasses-free 3D virtual reality.
Dmitri Choutov, Swave cofounder and COO, said the team is on track to introduce product development kits with production devices following soon thereafter, but the company did not provide additional details or timelines in its media announcement.