The European Funding Financial institution (EIB) has signed a €25 million enterprise debt financing settlement with Amsterdam-based Optics11, a DeepTech scale-up that builds superior fibre optic sensing options.
The Dutch firm plans to make use of this capital for analysis and improvement on its applied sciences for civilian and defence purposes. It goals to speed up the productisation and Europe-wide adoption of its monitoring expertise to guard important infrastructure, notably in underwater environments and high-voltage energy grids.
“Disruptions to subsea infrastructure, maritime commerce or failures in high-voltage grids have speedy and far-reaching penalties on our society. With this EIB financing, Optics11 accelerates the deployment of distinctive fibre-optic sensing applied sciences that shield the infrastructure so important to Europe’s safety and power resilience,” mentioned Optics11 CEO Paul Heiden.
Optics11 was based in 2011 as a spin-off from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam by experimental physics professor Davide Iannuzzi and entrepreneur Hans Brouwer. It develops superior fibre-optic sensing programs for the world’s harshest environments. Its tech has purposes within the power sector and underwater safety, the 2 areas related to European strategic autonomy.
The corporate helps missions equivalent to submarine monitoring, border surveillance, and structural well being monitoring of naval belongings and electrical energy networks, utilizing expertise that permits ultra-sensitive vibration and acoustic monitoring in harsh environments.
In line with Optics11, its fibre optic sensors remove points with electromagnetic interference, providing reliability in robust environments the place conventional sensors typically fail. The corporate states that its software program analyses sensor information on the velocity of sunshine, figuring out potential threats to forestall expensive disruptions.
The corporate’s choices mix fibre-optic sensing {hardware} with menace detection software program. This, in response to Optics11, permits quicker detection and localisation of threats when in comparison with different options available on the market, giving operators extra time to reply.
Its options embody a predictive monitoring answer known as OptiFender that identifies and locates partial discharge occasions – the earliest indicator of upcoming asset failures – inside excessive and medium voltage electrical programs.
Whereas its OptiBarrier and OptiArray options present a subsea early-warning system by way of precision fibre optic sensors that constantly safeguard underwater infrastructure in opposition to sabotage and unauthorised interference.
Final yr, in Might, the corporate raised €17 million in a funding spherical led by FORWARD.one and SET Ventures.
EIB Vice-President Robert de Groot mentioned, “Our continent is working arduous to verify it could maintain its personal in many alternative fields, however we have to assist the businesses that may make that occur. From the power sector to safety and defence capabilities, we want to have the ability to have the most effective expertise for recognized and unknown threats. In brief, the options developed by Optics11 are offering Europe with important options and aggressive benefits for the world that’s coming.”
The EIB backing for Optics11 is supported below the European Fee’s InvestEU programme.
