Pilot Photonics, a spin-out company based on research at Dublin City University and the Tyndall National Institute in Cork, has closed a seed investment round of €300,000 with Enterprise Ireland and AIB Seed Capital Fund.

The investment will allow Pilot Photonics, led by Dr Philip Perry and Dr Frank Smyth, to further develop its optical networking technology, which can increase the capacity of the fibre-optic cables that underpin the internet. The round of funding will enable the researchers to begin commercialising their work.

“One of the best-kept secrets is that the accessible bandwidth of the optical fibre that makes up the core of the internet is almost full – there’s very little spare capacity in there,” said Dr Perry, chief executive of Pilot Photonics. “Using our technology you can get more data down existing fibre-optic cables rather than having to dig up roads to lay new fibre.”

The company expects demand for its technology will grow as cloud computing and video-intensive applications become more commonplace on the internet.