Oriole Networks raises further $22m

Oriole - who are using light to train LLMs with a fraction of the usual AI energy consumption – will further scale its “super-brain” solution.

The round was led by Plural with all existing investors – UCL Technology Fund, XTX Ventures, Clean Growth Fund, and Dorilton Ventures – reinvesting.

Oriole Networks solves AI’s biggest challenges – speed, latency and sustainability. It uses light, via advanced photonics technology, to create networks of AI chips and combine their processing power. With this novel approach, LLMs can be trained up to a 100x faster, whilst consuming a fraction of power, allowing algorithms to run with much lower latency.

Oriole’s technology dramatically reduces the energy consumption of data centres, which is putting a huge strain on energy grids in both the US and Europe.

Unique IP decades in the making at UCL

Founded in 2023 out of University College London (UCL), Oriole Networks brings together pioneering science in optical networks, with founder experience from CEO James Regan, who built EFFECT Photonics. The technology and unique IP were developed over two decades at UCL by founding scientists Professor George Zervas, Alessandro Ottino, and Joshua Benjamin.

Ian Hogarth, who led the investment on behalf of Plural, will be joining the board.

Marina Santilli, Associate Director of the Physical Sciences and Engineering, UCL Ventures, said: “The Oriole team were already pushing forward at pace with the translation of UCL research into commercial hardware following their seed round earlier this year, so the closing of this Series A gives that timeline an extra boost. The sooner Oriole can realise their vision of an energy-efficient, all-optical data centre, the better for the planet!”

Professor George Zervas, co-founder and CTO at Oriole, said: “AI computational needs are increasing by 10 times every 18 months. Collective data movement across the AI servers in the data centre becomes a bottleneck. This funding round allows us to accelerate the development of our co-designed optical networked system.”

James Regan, CEO of Oriole Networks, said: “This funding is yet another milestone for Oriole following a year of rapid pace and growth. This is a booming market desperate for solutions and our ambition is to create an ecosystem of photonic networking that can reshape this industry.”