Arago Raises $26M to Launch Energy-Efficient AI Chip Powered By Light

Unlike regular chips that use transistors, JEF runs on light (photons), using lasers to process data. This helps it deliver the same performance as top GPUs while using 10× less energy.

JEF works with existing AI tools, hardware, and manufacturing systems—making it easy to adopt. Early tests show strong results, solving key problems that held back earlier light-based chips.

Read Also - Biorce Healthtech Startup Secures €5M to Accelerate Drug Development With AI

Nicolas Muller, Arago’s CEO and co-founder, said: To build a product that’s not only high-performing but also truly usable, it’s critical to deeply understand the constraints of integrating a component based on a different compute principle into the broader ecosystem. We don’t have the luxury of waiting for the ecosystem to adapt – our technology needs to be compatible with everything from manufacturing processes to the AI software stack from day one.

Thong Le Hoang, co-founder of Visionaries Tomorrow, highlights that innovation in computing is one of the hardest deeptech challenges, adding:

Arago’s superpower lies in its first-principles vision of the future, combined with a deep understanding across digital, analog, and photonic approaches. The result is a unique hybrid architecture built on the latest industry breakthroughs and engineered to deliver step-change performance gains in the near term.

Arago was founded less than a year ago by Nicolas Muller, Eliott Sarrey, and Ambroise Müller, bringing together deep knowledge in photonics, electronics, software, math, and machine learning. The company now has a small but strong team of 20 experts from top tech firms and research labs.

Their $26M seed round was oversubscribed and co-led by Earlybird, Protagonist, and Visionaries Tomorrow, with support from Generative IQ, C4 Ventures, and well-known angel investors like Bertrand Serlet (ex-Apple), Olivier Pomel (Datadog), and Thomas Wolf (Hugging Face).

Earlybird co-founder Hendrik Brandis shared: Arago is creating a ‘DeepSeek moment’ for AI chips. This technology has the potential to defy the laws of AI compute, using only a fraction of the resources. The Arago team is executing towards this moment with unseen velocity and frugality.

Arago will use the funding to speed up product development, expand its team across different locations, and strengthen business partnerships.

About Arago

Founded in 2023, Arago is building an energy-efficient AI chip powered by light, aiming to transform computing. With teams in France, North America, and Israel, Arago brings together top talent from tech and research. The company is backed by leaders from Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, and top global deeptech investors.