00:00:00 · Sebastian Johnson, Hugo da Silva
[00:00:00] S0: Hello and welcome back to Scaling Europe Show. I'm Sebastian Johnson. Today on the show we've got Hugo. Hugo is the CEO of one of the most exciting European defect companies at the time. They play a crucial role in the rollout and the build out of AI glasses. Hugo, thank you for joining me. How are doing today? [00:00:13] S1: I'm good, thanks for inviting me. [00:00:15] S0: It's my pleasure, please tell me for those who don't know, what is it that you've built? [00:00:21] S1: So, well, so basically what we do, we do an equipment technology, let's put this way, They do nano imprinting lithography. What that really means for people who doesn't understand or are not very familiar with the technology, we imprint nano structure, So somewhere between the 20 microns all the way to a few 100 microns, what that really means. So we can create all kinds of different structure in photonics or non photonics applications that can create great devices like smart glasses for instance. So when AI smart glasses we do precise imprinting of structures that will build waveguides and waveguides are let's say the virtual display if you will, that will create the holographic image in front of you. So our technology will get the light that is channeled from the projector. We'll mix the light and create a virtual imagery or a holograph, image as you will, if you will, based on nano structures or nano undercuts or different designs that can get, you know, something that you can see. Basically, it's more like translating the data of AI device into something you can actually see.
00:00:21 · Hugo da Silva, Sebastian Johnson
[00:00:21] S1: So, well, so basically what we do, we do an equipment technology, let's put this way, They do nano imprinting lithography. What that really means for people who doesn't understand or are not very familiar with the technology, we imprint nano structure, So somewhere between the 20 microns all the way to a few 100 microns, what that really means. So we can create all kinds of different structure in photonics or non photonics applications that can create great devices like smart glasses for instance. So when AI smart glasses we do precise imprinting of structures that will build waveguides and waveguides are let's say the virtual display if you will, that will create the holographic image in front of you. So our technology will get the light that is channeled from the projector. We'll mix the light and create a virtual imagery or a holograph, image as you will, if you will, based on nano structures or nano undercuts or different designs that can get, you know, something that you can see. Basically, it's more like translating the data of AI device into something you can actually see. [00:01:34] S0: Amazing and you've just closed this €40,000,000 series B. What's happened in the last year or two? You know, feels that there's been a really explosive moment for both, you know, the company and the technology. What's gone on that's led to this explosion?
00:01:47 · Hugo da Silva
[00:01:47] S1: Well, yeah, thanks for asking. It was actually a bit of a holacroster, you know, doing fundraising, getting, you know, connected to the market, you know, get sales done, get machines installed, get our technology out there, but it's been quite a lot, right? But if I would divide in a few buckets on the commercial side, it's being grateful to be extremely successful deploying the equipment in several customers across. So basically the way this works, a lot of the large companies that make all the great devices we are all used to doing our phones or you know smart glasses. They are all based in you know different locations but the entire manufacturing it's in Asia, primarily China, Taiwan and Korea. So we were building a network or building a team and having a commercial traction in those regions and now deploying machines. Also creating new technology. We just launched a great new technology which is actually dedicated just to the waveguides for AI smart glasses. So what I just described earlier and actually sold the first equipment in the high volume manufacturing to a customer in Asia. So we are busy, you know, get busy with customers helping enabling customer to do mass manufacturing. One of the important things about our equipment, we can do high precision by scaling this high precision. Other technologies out there will either do precision or scale so we can combine both that will make our technology great. But we are busy deploying technology, with customers as well as doing fundraising. As you can imagine fundraising is not easy as it looks. So we are quite busy finishing the fundraising and you know being busy with customer. That basically what took a lot of my time last year.
00:03:32 · Sebastian Johnson, Hugo da Silva
[00:03:32] S0: How does it feel to be done, closed around, must be a relief? [00:03:36] S1: Well it's a big relief as you can imagine, right, you were running all kinds of different balls in the air you know doing fundraising, visiting customers, setting up a team. Obviously we're structuring a team as you grow, there's a higher demand in the market. So we need, you know, smarter people to be around ourselves. We need to hire top engineers, you know, people that understand the application, people who understands the technology. And now fundraising is almost a full time job, but all these other jobs are also expecting someone to help. So basically it's a big relief to not doing fundraising, but the life of a company like ourselves is always in a fundraising mode even if we just closed the round. If there are any investors out there that believes in our technology wants to connect, they're more than happy to entertain a discussion. [00:04:23] S0: Amazing and what's next for you then right you've just closed this round you're now I guess like no longer distracted by this fundraising process, you've got a lot of tailwinds behind, you've got a lot of growth at the moment, where are you going to be spending your time?
00:04:36 · Hugo da Silva
[00:04:36] S1: So one is to develop, so like I said we are selling a new technology, so we are shipping this new technology by the end of the year. So make sure everything is correct, right? So we are in a deep tech, highly precision, not only equipment, but the whole process. So we don't only sell the equipment. So we lay down the entire process to make sure customers are successful doing the entire manufacturing. So we are quite busy making sure that we deliver that among all the other customers that we already deliver. Let's say the first generation of our equipment is the second generation. So make sure they are successful. That's large part of my job. We are also quite busy in, so some of our customers start to push us to different applications or different use cases. Also in AI era, as you can imagine, AI glass is one thing, but there's a lot of things happening on the data center where we see what they call co package optics becoming quite an interesting application for us as well. Our equipment and our technology can pretty much deliver on that as well. And we see as a high potential in this market. So we are now in a way making sure we can deliver everything on the AI smart glasses and preparing ourselves to this next step, which is a large market. It can also help a lot on, you know, reducing dramatically the need of energy in data centers, basically making the connection between chips through light and we can play a role in that sense as well.
00:06:09 · Sebastian Johnson
[00:06:09] S0: And tell me a bit about that because that sounds really exciting. Where's this coming from? What's the size of this opportunity?