# Bardia Pezeshki

> Bardia Pezeshki is a serial entrepreneur and photonics pioneer who has spent three decades turning light into bandwidth. As co-founder of Avicena Tech, he is leading the push to replace copper chip-to-chip interconnects with microLED-based optical links - a bet that energy efficiency, not raw speed, is the bottleneck holding back AI infrastructure. With a Stanford PhD in electrical engineering, a prior company (Santur) that moved most of the world's long-distance internet traffic, and a $65M Series B closed in May 2025, Pezeshki is now in the race to wire the AI data center of the future with light.

- **Role:** Founder & CTO at Avicena Tech
- **Organizations:** Avicena Tech, Santur Corporation, Kaiam Corporation, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, SDL Inc.
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** BS in Physics, Harvey Mudd College, PhD in Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
- **Known for:** Co-founded Santur Corporation, which achieved 80% market share in widely tunable telecom lasers and shipped 500,000+ units generating over $500M in revenue, Santur's tunable lasers carried most of the world's long-distance internet traffic for years, Co-founded Kaiam Corporation, pioneering first practical multi-wavelength 40G and 100G transceivers for hyperscale datacenters

## Career timeline

- **1987-1991** — PhD in Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
- **1991-1994** — Research at IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
- **1994-2000** — Technical roles at SDL Inc.
- **2000** — Co-founded Santur Corporation, pioneering tunable DFB laser arrays using MEMS mirror technology
- **2007** — Santur became highest-volume supplier of widely tunable lasers; over 500,000 units shipped generating $500M+ in revenue; 80% market share in telecom
- **2009** — Founded Kaiam Corporation; pioneered low-cost alignment methods for multi-wavelength optical transceivers
- **2013-2018** — Kaiam products sole-sourced at major cloud companies for 40Gbps and 100Gbps datacenter transceivers
- **2019** — Kaiam ceased operations; co-founded Avicena Tech to develop microLED-based chip-to-chip optical interconnects
- **2022** — Avicena raised $25M Series A from Samsung Catalyst Fund, Cerberus Capital, Clear Ventures, and Micron Ventures
- **2024** — Demonstrated 30-meter reach LightBundle microLED link at ECOC 2024 Frankfurt
- **2025-05** — Avicena closed $65M Series B led by Tiger Global with SK hynix, Lam Research, and others
- **2025-09** — Transitioned from CEO to CTO; Marco Chisari (ex-Samsung Foundries) named CEO; set record 200 fJ/bit energy efficiency at ECOC 2025 Copenhagen
- **2026-03** — Launched LightBundle eKit - world's first microLED optical interconnect evaluation kit

## Achievements

- Co-founded Santur Corporation, which achieved 80% market share in widely tunable telecom lasers and shipped 500,000+ units generating over $500M in revenue
- Santur's tunable lasers carried most of the world's long-distance internet traffic for years
- Co-founded Kaiam Corporation, pioneering first practical multi-wavelength 40G and 100G transceivers for hyperscale datacenters
- Co-founded Avicena Tech and developed LightBundle, a 256-element microLED optical interconnect with sub-pJ/bit energy efficiency
- Demonstrated 200 femtojoules per bit energy efficiency for a microLED optical link at ECOC 2025 - a world record
- Demonstrated 30-meter reach microLED link at ECOC 2024, sufficient to span an entire datacenter rack row
- Secured TSMC as manufacturing partner for silicon photodetector arrays
- Raised $120M total for Avicena Tech including a $65M Series B from Tiger Global, SK hynix, and Lam Research
- Holds multiple patents in tunable laser and MEMS-based optical switching technology
- Published research at OFC and ECOC - the premier optical communications conferences

## Latest updates

- **2026-03** — Launched LightBundle eKit - world's first microLED optical interconnect evaluation kit for hardware integrators
- **2025-09** — Transitioned to CTO role at Avicena; Marco Chisari named CEO. Presented 200 fJ/bit world-record energy efficiency at ECOC 2025 in Copenhagen.
- **2025-05** — Avicena closed $65M Series B led by Tiger Global, with strategic investors SK hynix, Lam Research, Hitachi Ventures, Maverick Silicon, Prosperity7, Venture Tech Alliance, and Cerberus Capital.
- **2025-04** — Announced TSMC partnership for silicon photodetector array production for LightBundle interconnects.
- **2024-09** — Demonstrated 30-meter reach LightBundle microLED link at ECOC 2024 in Frankfurt - sufficient to span a full datacenter rack row.

## Links

- Website: https://avicena.tech
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/bardia-pezeshki-b75b2b6
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/AvicenaTech
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@bardiapezeshki7246
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bardiapezeshki/

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/bardia-pezeshki
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-13