Folio Photonics gets A-round cash for multi-layer optical disk tech
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data protection Folio Photonics gets A-round cash for multi-layer optical disk tech Folio Photonics has raised $8 million in A-round funding for its optical disk archive technology The company is developing multi-layer optical disks with up to 32 layers and media costs starting at ~$3/TB. Data is stored at points in the nanophotonic optical medium as emitted fluorescent signals that are generated by laser pulses. The WORM disks can hold data for 50 to 100 years, and first generation ones could hold between 1 and 2 TB of data, with several mounted in a cartridge. It has patented the basic technology and, three years ago, it hired an engineering manager to help it develop its optical disk drive. Back in 2019 it closed an $8 million seed round. An alpha version drive was developed in 2024, with a second generation beta drive appearing last year. It pulled in $2.56 million in a further seed round in February this year. Now developments have progressed sufficiently to convince A-round funders to put in cash for further development. CEO Steven Santamaria said: “The world is generating more data than existing infrastructure can afford to remember. There is a large and growing addressable market in traditional archival storage today – and we intend to win in it. But the bigger opportunity is what comes next: the Knowledge Layer that AI will require. Old data is future intelligence. Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) generate intelligence – Folio retains it.” The cash will be used to accelerate the company’s transition from technology development into productization, with: Active customer engagement with major hyperscaler partners, Productization of its archival and Knowledge Layer storage platform, Scaling manufacturing readiness, Expansion of strategic industry partnerships, Growth of engineering and operational teams in Ohio where it’s based. The drive and media are designed for integration with existing manufacturing ecosystems, helping to speed the path to commercial scale. Commercialization is currently targeted for 2027. Folio reckons it can disrupt the current archive market, projected to exceed $12 billion globally by 2028, because its product will have better economics and faster speed than tape. AI will generate massive amounts of data which will need to be archived and this will bulk up the future archive market. Folio calls this the Knowledge Layer infrastructure for the AI era, a foundational infrastructure that stores the data AI learns from. It will certainly need to differentiate itself with a competitive solution as the archive market expands to AI-generated data. The A-round investment was co-led by Material Impact and The O.H.I.O. Fund, alongside investments from JumpStart Ventures, Pavey Investments and Refinery Ventures, and the JobsOhio Ventures Fund. Paul Deninger, Operating Partner at Material Impact who joined the Folio Board and was formerly an Iron Mountain board member as that company built out its datacenter strategy, said: “The archival storage market alone is a large and proven opportunity where Folio’s economics are compelling. And beyond that, Folio is positioning to become foundational Knowledge Layer infrastructure for AI. The company has assembled an impressive technical foundation, is actively engaged with hyperscaler partners and has the potential to define a new category.” Folio Photonics is one of several new archival storage technology startups, such as Biomemory (DNA storage), Cerabyte (ceramic-coated glass tablets), Ewigbyte, Holomem, Microsoft (Project Silica), and Optera. Check out a Folio Photonics white paper here.
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