SpaceX vets raise $50M Series A for data center tie-ins

Travis Brashears, Cameron Ramos, and Serena Graun-Hyperly began collaborating at SpaceX, developing the optical communications links that keep thousands of Starlink Internet satellites always connected.

Now, the three engineers are co-founders of Mesh Optical Technologies, a Los Angeles startup that announced a $50 million Series A led by Thrive Capital on Tuesday.

Mesh aims to mass produce optical transceivers, devices that convert optical signals from fiber or lasers into electrical signals for computers. CEO Brashears, President Ramos, and VP of Product Grown-Haeberli realized the opportunity when the design of a new generation of SpaceX’s compute-hungry satellites forced them to evaluate the optical transceiver market, and see its limits.

Optical transceivers are especially important for data centers aiming to train and run large deep learning models, because they allow multiple GPUs to work in concert. One of the authorized suppliers in the United States, AOI, He won the contract $4 billion to provide components for AWS data centers last year.

“Someone will brag about a million GPU clusters; you have to multiply by four to five the number of transceivers in that cluster,” Brashears explained.

The company’s goal is to manufacture a thousand units per day during the year so they can start qualifying for bulk orders in 2027 and 2028.

The optical transceiver market is dominated by Chinese companies and suppliers, and Mesh sees an advantage in building its supply chain outside of this country. While trade restrictions have yet to impact the market, the founders and their backers see themselves facing a national security dilemma.

“If AI is the most important technology in generations (which we believe to be true), running significant portions of AI data center capital expenditures across incompatible/competitive countries is problematic,” Thrive partner Philip Clarke wrote for TechCrunch. “In the near term, Mesh solves our need for better ways to interconnect if we want to continue to scale AI.”

The challenge for Mesh, the founders say, is implementing automated manufacturing techniques, which are uncommon in American industry. Much of this expertise is concentrated in China, and European equipment suppliers even expect Chinese customers – the standard acceptance form for a German company asks for the Chinese company’s registration number.

By co-locating design and production, the founders hope to achieve more efficient and lower-cost components. Their current design removes a commonly used but power-hungry component, which Ramos said could reduce a GPU array’s power usage by 3% to 5%, a significant amount as hyperscalers seek to wring as much efficiency out of their systems as possible.

Data centers are just the beginning of Mesh’s aspirations; The company sees optical wavelength communications as the next paradigm in communications.

“The world has focused primarily on (radio frequencies) for a long time,” Brashears told TechCrunch. “We want to be on the verge of moving from radio frequency to photonics… We want to connect everything, not just computers, but that’s where we start.”