A few days ago, the Valencia-based start-up iPronics closed one of the largest funding rounds of the year in Spain's tech innovation sector, raising 125 million dollars (more than 107 million euros). The transaction carries even greater significance due to the participation of the market's standard-bearing tech powerhouse, the almighty Nvidia. With this deal, the emerging company—which builds optical switches connecting tens of thousands of graphics processing units (GPUs) in artificial intelligence data centers—has opened its capital to the US chip giant, marking Nvidia's first major investment in the Spanish tech sector.
The world's largest company by market capitalization, valued at nearly 5.6 trillion dollars (around 4.8 trillion euros), has extended its aggressive investment strategy in AI-linked companies to Spain. In this instance, it did so alongside investors such as Maverick Silicon, Light Street Capital, and Catalight Capital, as well as the European Innovation Council Fund, among many other regular participants in this type of financing. Criteria Venture Tech, the start-up investment subsidiary of La Caixa's investment arm, which has backed iPronics since its early days, also joined the round.
The Valencian company aims to become a major player in AI physical infrastructure. It began operations in 2019 as a spin-off from the University of Valencia, explains Daniel Pérez-López, co-founder and chief technology officer, over the phone. The firm emerged from pioneering work in programmable silicon photonics and large-scale photonic systems. The executive adds that, even then, the team had accumulated a long track record of university research in integrated photonics technology. This technology is key to improving efficiency in data centers during a period of rapid growth in computing driven by the deployment of artificial intelligence.
"iPronics was able to program light for use in data centers," say industry sources, who recall that the company initially had a generic product suitable for other sectors like telecommunications or automotive. However, it later chose to specialize. "They decided to focus on its application in AI and data centers," note the same sources, emphasizing that iPronics has managed to attract investors despite operating in hardware (physical equipment and components)—a capital-intensive sector with execution timelines that differ greatly from software (programs and applications).
In this regard, Daniel Pérez explains that customers use their devices to interconnect graphics cards and GPUs (the chips that help generate images, videos, or graphics) and to avoid computing bottlenecks in data centers. This reduces electrical energy consumption at these facilities while simultaneously improving efficiency.
Resource fundraising since its launch has enabled the Valencian company to scale operations, establishing a subsidiary in California: iPronics Innovation Inc. This positions them close to tech customers in the United States and has led them to double their team to over a hundred people, more than a third of whom hold doctorates. With the new funding round, the goal is to recruit new talent and double the workforce once again, focusing on hiring personnel in the United States. However, they note that the company's headquarters and primary operations will remain in Valencia.
On a more technical level, the company will also allocate part of the funds raised in the latest round to expanding its operational capacity and commercially deploying its optical switch, named iPronics ONE. The more than 100 million raised reflects a success story on that front as well. It all began in July 2022, when it closed a 3.7 million euro seed round led by Amadeus Capital Partners, Criteria Venture Tech, and various tech business angels. Last year, the start-up closed a 20 million round led by Triatomic Capital, with participation from Fine Structure Ventures, Bosch Ventures, Amadeus Capital Partners, and Criteria Venture Tech. To date, iPronics has raised more than 152 million euros in funding.
The latest annual financial report from 2025 also indicates that the firm was granted grants totaling 13.9 million euros. Notable among these were funds awarded by the Ministry of Industry and Tourism under European recovery funds.
The emerging firm took advantage of the announcement of the latest transaction to state that it is developing an optical circuit switch (OCS), a type of chip popularized in data centers by Google. Indeed, one of iPronics' main challenges involves commercializing its technology among major cloud service providers, or hyperscalers, which means dealing with giants like Google, Microsoft, Meta, or Amazon.
To achieve this, the Valencian company expects to maintain a technological edge while reducing the size of OCS equipment by approximately 20 times compared to current dimensions. This would allow more switches to be installed within the same rack (the structure used to stack servers). With roughly a year of experience in distributing switches, its path toward securing a place in this new technology has already begun.
