Luminate media kit
Media assets for round 8 of the Luminate NY accelerator. Luminate Finals 2025 is sponsored by SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics.Media Contacts
Luminate
Shannon Wojcik
shannon@rkgcomms.com
585-831-6267
SPIE
Kevin Probasco
kevinp@spie.org
360-685-5525
Downloads
^Includes Luminate logo files, fact sheet, and headshot for Dr. Sujatha Ramanujan, Managing Director & Chief Investment Officer
Videos
Luminate Finals 2025 promo
Luminate cohort 8 B-roll
The finalists of Luminate cohort 8
amPICQ
CTO: Prometheus Das Mahapatra, PhD
Hometown: Hyderabad, India
amPICQ is advancing cybersecurity by addressing the limitations of traditional cryptography in the face of growing quantum computing threats. Its core technology—miniaturized, programmable photonic integrated circuits (PICs)—powers compact, high-performance modules for Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and Quantum Random Number Generation (QRNG). amPICQ’s solution makes quantum-safe security practical and accessible across telecom, defense, and critical infrastructure networks, offering greater scalability, energy efficiency, and resilience compared to bulky optics systems.
IRIDESENSE
Co-Founder & President: Nadine Buard, PhD
Hometown: Paris, France
IRIDESENSE is redefining environmental perception with a multispectral LiDAR solution that combines 3D mapping and Short Wave Infrared (SWIR) spectral analysis in a single, calibration-free system. Unlike traditional 2D cameras or standard LiDAR, IRIDESENSE’s revolutionary technology delivers real-time data on volume, distance, and material composition—even in low light—across five color channels and at ranges up to 300 meters. It’s a game-changer for safety and efficiency in industries like mining, airport surface monitoring, and other applications that require precise, real-time scene analysis.
LirOptic
Co-Founder & CEO: Simon Forsyth
Hometown: Dublin, Ireland
LirOptic’s adjustable solid-state lens technology delivers precise, tunable optics without mechanically moving parts—eliminating issues caused by gravity, vibration, or magnetic fields. Born from research at University College Dublin, its breakthrough solution can produce aspherical and arbitrary lens shapes with exceptional accuracy, enabling diffraction-limited imaging in a compact form factor. By shrinking the depth of Compact Camera Modules (CCMs) by over 2 mm, LirOptic achieves true optical zoom, variable focal lengths, enhanced low-light performance, and superior image quality in smartphones while supporting miniaturization in medical, extended reality, automotive, and space-based applications.
Metahelios
Co-Founder & CEO: Charles Altuzarra, PhD
Hometown: Glasgow, Scotland
Metahelios is poised to create a foundational leap for the semiconductor industry with its revolutionary approach to camera chip manufacturing. Its patented metafilter technology merges next-generation color filters and advanced pixel architecture into a seamless, unified semiconductor process—replacing an outdated, multi-step workflow while enhancing visual clarity. By eliminating process disruptions, Metahelios’ technology has the potential to save the camera chip industry $1B in annual manufacturing costs, all while providing superior quality photos for smartphone consumers.
Oblate Optics
President & CEO: Paul Herz
Hometown: San Diego, CA
Oblate Optics makes ultra-thin lenses that keep laser beams in perfect focus—even on curved or uneven surfaces—without the need to move or refocus the optics. Its AI-optimized extended-depth-of-focus (EDoF) metalenses replace bulky f-theta lenses and mechanical autofocus modules, simplifying laser engravers, cutters, and other tools to make them faster, cheaper, and more reliable. Fabricated using scalable semiconductor processes and customizable for advanced beam profiles, these lenses help manufacturers—from medical device makers to aerospace suppliers—increase throughput, reduce waste, and expand design possibilities.
Pensievision
President: Tal Almog
Hometown: San Diego, CA
Pensievision delivers breakthrough 3D imaging by combining a miniaturized single-lens setup, artificial intelligence, and astronomy-inspired optics. Unlike traditional stereoscopic systems, Pensievision’s compact design enables high-precision insights in tight or complex environments where bulky, multi-lens, or laser-based systems fail. Proprietary software corrects for misalignment and calibration issues, maintaining superior accuracy even in suboptimal conditions to minimize missed anomalies. With no moving parts and a rigid, spaceflight-tested build, it ensures exceptional reliability across the most demanding environments, from medical diagnostics, to factory floors, to orbital missions.
Pixel Photonics
Co-Founder & CEO: Nicolai Walter
Hometown: Münster, Germany
Pixel Photonics is removing the barriers to widespread use of superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors (SNSPDs) with its waveguide-integrating design (WI-SNSPDs). These detectors combine exceptional speed, precision, and spectral range with direct integration onto photonic chips, enabling scalable, cost-effective manufacturing in commercial foundries. Compact, polarization-insensitive, and maintenance-light, they’re ready for OEM integration across quantum communication, microscopy, medical diagnostics, and advanced sensing—applications where the highest-performing light detectors were previously impractical.
SNOChip
CEO: Qing Wang
Hometown: Princeton, NJ
SNOChip pioneers on-chip optical components—such as microlens arrays, computer-generated holograms (CGHs), and metasurfaces—designed for seamless integration with semiconductor lasers and sensor chips. Its modular nanostructures enable precise beam shaping, collimation, and intensity control, optimizing illumination and imaging performance. Demonstrated on 6-inch VCSEL wafers, SNOChip’s scalable manufacturing process supports rapid prototyping through volume production. Its inverse-designed CGHs and multifunctional metasurfaces deliver customizable, high-efficiency light manipulation across diverse applications including LiDAR, sensing, and communications.
VanaM Inc.
CEO: SooDeok Han, PhD
Hometown: Seoul, South Korea
VanaM Inc.’s versatile thin-film deposition platform blends scientific precision with manufacturing flexibility, enabling faster and more collaborative development of complex films than traditional suppliers. Building on pioneering vanadium dioxide (VO₂) research, VanaM designs and delivers thin films that meet customers’ exact application needs—enabling lighter, faster, and more energy-efficient devices in fast-moving sectors like quantum photonics and advanced optics. Operating in the space between academic labs and large, rigid foundries, VanaM provides full development service, from prototyping to batch production.
Wyse Light
Founder: Yves Surrel, PhD
Hometown: Saint-Étienne, France
Wyse Light is redefining optical metrology with coaxial deflectometry, a patented technique that enables nanometric-precision measurement of reflective surfaces—from simple planes to complex freeforms. Unlike traditional deflectometry, this method resolves fundamental shape ambiguities without the need for surface references or computer-generated holograms (CGHs). Its vibration-insensitive, self-calibrating system operates on standard tabletops, making it suitable for metrology labs and manufacturing floors alike. Matching interferometer accuracy with a simpler, cost-effective design, Wyse Light helps manufacturers streamline production cycles and reduce dependence on specialized metrology expertise.
Runners up
Ciconia Medical
Founder & CEO: Roni Cantor-Balan
Hometown: San Diego, CA
Ciconia Medical is transforming labor monitoring with the first AI-based medical device designed to replace traditional vaginal exams, which are currently performed manually and often described by patients as painful, invasive, and traumatic. By offering accurate, user-independent measurements, Ciconcia provides clinicians with a safe, gentle, and objective alternative for assessing labor progress. This innovation aims to reduce unnecessary interventions, such as cesarean sections, inductions, and amniotomies, while supporting better outcomes for both mothers and babies.
Dottir Labs
Founder & CEO: Nili Persits, PhD
Hometown: Somerville, MA
Dottir Labs leverages patented optical technology and advanced fiber-optic Raman spectroscopy to deliver real-time, reagent-free chemical analysis of water, supporting sustainable practices in food production, environmental monitoring, and industrial processes. Its compact, rugged sensor networks provide continuous, in-line monitoring of nutrients, metabolic markers, CO₂, waste products, and other compounds, without disrupting operations or requiring manual sampling. Designed for both freshwater and saltwater environments, Dottir’s scalable systems deliver high-sensitivity data that adapts over time through machine learning, empowering industries from aquaculture to advanced manufacturing with actionable chemical visibility for smarter, more sustainable operations.
Luminate fast facts
1,000+ Applications
64 countries
85 Funded Companies
31 can classify as MWBE
$700M
Estimated Portfolio Value
4 exits
14:1 Investment Ratio
Luminate: $21M
Total + non-dilutive funding: $294M
>210 NYS Jobs Created
includes direct and contract
About SPIE
SPIE is the international society for optics and photonics. We strengthen the global optics and photonics community through conferences, publications, and professional development, bringing together engineers, scientists, students, and industry leaders to advance light-based science and technologies. Inspired by the transformative power of photonics to enhance life around the globe, over the past five years SPIE has contributed more than $25 million to the international optics community.