Relativity Networks Raises $22M Seed for Hollow Core Fiber

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Relativity Networks has closed roughly $22 million in a SAFE investment, more than double what it set out to raise. The Seed round drew new investors including Rhapsody Venture Partners, Bell Ventures Inc. and Faster Than Glass LLC.

The company makes hollow core fiber, which swaps the solid glass core of a conventional optical cable for air. Data moves roughly 30 to 47 percent faster as a result, and latency over the same distance drops by about 32 percent. Its ChronoCore product rests on more than ten years of research at CREOL, the College of Optics and Photonics at the University of Central Florida.

Alongside the raise came a commercial signal that matters more than the funding. A leading hyperscaler placed a $40 million follow on order after testing ChronoCore on a link between two of its data centers.

Manufacturing is split across countries. The fiber is drawn at a Prysmian facility in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, and cabled at a Prysmian plant in Claremont, North Carolina. Couplers, fiber characterization and installation training all happen in Orlando, where the company is based. The Florida operation sits next to the university lab the technology came from.

Data center buildouts have made telecommunications capacity a bottleneck, which is the opening this product is aimed at.

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