NIL Technology raises €26M to accelerate manufacturing of optical solutions for 3D sensing

Copenhagen, Denmark – February 24, 2021 – NIL Technology (NILT), a specialist in advanced optical solutions has carried out a financing round of 26 million (USD 31 million). The financing was co-led by Jolt Capital, NGP Capital and Vækstfonden, with EIC Fund as a new significant investor. 

Over the last two years, NILT has developed unique solutions for optical components that take optical sensing and 3D imaging to a new level with respect to performance, efficiency, compactness, and material consumption.  

3D sensing is a pioneering feature for smartphones, consumer products, AR/MR, autonomous vehicles, etc., where cutting edge real-time sensor technologies, such as face- and gesture recognition or monitoring of surroundings are wanted. 

Optical components based on NILT’s solutions are already used in flagship smartphonesThe new financing will allow NILT to accelerate its mass production capabilities and expand its product development efforts. NILT will continue to strengthen its development of the revolutionary metalens technology to simplify, reduce size and improve quality across all optical component use cases.  

Theodor Nielsen, founder and CEO, of NILT comments:  
“I am delighted to have our existing renowned investors follow-on with this new financing round, and I am pleased to welcome a new important investor. We have built a great team and developed unique optical solutions that have received amazing response in the market. Our solutions for 3D near infrared sensing, using our optical and metalens solutions, demand expansion of our production capabilities, something that now will accelerate.” 

Jean Schmitt, Managing Partner at Jolt Capital and NILT board member comments: 
“Photonics today stands where electronics were 20 years ago and NILT is at the forefront of that new optics revolution. At Jolt Capital we’ve been bullish on this topic for 10 years and we know how to scale high tech factories and increase yield in demanding environments. With this new round, we stand by NILT to help them mass produce this future ‘made in Europe’ light modules.”  

Bo Ilsoe, Partner of NGP Capital and NILT board member adds:  
“NILT has developed unique optical components that take sensing and 3D imaging to a new level. We are looking forward to seeing NILT’s solutions in consumer electronic products, autonomous vehicles, and machine vision applications. NILT is addressing a large market and they are led by a strong team. We look forward to cooperating with Theodor and his team, and to help creating a Danish winner in the optic industry.”  

Martin Bruncko, deep tech entrepreneur and EIC Fund Investment Committee member adds: 
“I am glad that the EIC Fund was able to catalyze this very large funding round for a European deep tech company that is commercializing breakthrough technology coming from advanced science and engineering. This €26 million series B round will move NILT’s product much closer to deployment in a number of important new markets, including autonomous vehicles and AR.” 

About NILT 
NIL Technology ApS (NILT) is an optical solutions company designing, developing, and manufacturing optical elements and components using high-precision nanoscale features. NILT creates competitive advantages in optical applications for 3D sensing, consumer electronics, machine vision, autonomous vehicles and VR/AR. Products include diffusers, fan-outs, collimators, focusing lenses and tech for making planar waveguides; all made by diffractive optical elements and metalenses. NILT was named as one of top-25 European IoT and hardware start-ups to watch in 2019. 

About Jolt Capital
Jolt Capital provides growth equity financing to European B2B technology companies about to go global and with current revenue from €15m to €50m. Led by seasoned investors and former C-level executives, Jolt Capital actively drives portfolio companies’ expansion and exits. Jolt Capital’s proprietary AI platform, Jolt.Ninja, exponentially improves mapping of Europe’s technology ecosystem, ESG-compliant deal flow generation, due diligences and post-investment activities. www.jolt-capital.com 

About NGP Capital
NGP Capital is a globally engaged venture capital fund backing growth-stage and revenue-generating technology companies that will shape and power a fully connected world. By operating one, global fund with over $1.2 billion under management, we extend our companies’ reach via on-the-ground teams in U.S., Europe, India, and China making our portfolio company products and services local everywhere. Visit us at www.ngpcap.com and follow us on LinkedIn and @ngpcapital. 

About Vækstfonden 
Vaeksfonden is the Danish state’s investment fund. Working in close collaboration with banks and domestic and international investors, Vaekstfonden discovers and develops the companies that Denmark cannot afford to miss out on. The power of innovation yield to society and responsibility are the three signposts that guide Vaekstfonden in finding and choosing new projects. Since 1992, Vaekstfonden has contributed more than DKK 33,8 billion to help develop and grow more than 9.200 companies. 

About EIC Fund 
Established in June 2020, the European Innovation Council (EIC) Fund a breakthrough initiative of the European Commission to make direct equity and quasi-equity investments (between €500.000 and €15 million) in European high impact and deep tech start-ups and scale ups. The EIC Fund aims to fill a critical financing gap particularly faced by innovative science and engineering based companies when bringing their technologies to market. While filing this financing gap, the Fund’s main purpose is not to maximize financial investment returns, but to have a high impact by accompanying companies with breakthrough and disruptive technologies in their growth as patient capital investor. 

Optical components from NIL Technology
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