A €40 Million Bet on Nanophotonic Imaging Technology
Eyeo has secured €40 million in Series A funding, lifting its total capital raised to €55 million and marking a pivotal moment for nanophotonic imaging technology. Led by Innovation Industries with participation from existing backers including imec.xpand, Invest-NL, Qbic, High-Tech Gründerfonds and the Brabant Development Agency, the round signals strong confidence in a new approach to camera sensor innovation. The company is commercialising research originally developed at imec, targeting a fundamental bottleneck in image sensors: conventional colour filters that waste much of the incoming light. By moving from research phase to scaled commercial delivery, eyeo aims to embed its colour-splitting platform into a broad range of devices. The funding will be used to expand engineering capacity, deepen partnerships with manufacturers and accelerate the path from prototypes to volume production in both consumer and industrial markets.
From Colour Filters to Colour-Splitting: What Changes Inside the Sensor
Traditional camera sensors rely on colour filters that sit above pixels, each passing only a narrow band of light and blocking the rest. This architecture has remained largely unchanged for decades and inherently limits light sensitivity improvement and colour fidelity. Eyeo’s NCOS platform takes a different route: it uses nanophotonic structures to split incoming light into separate colour components and direct photons to the appropriate pixels instead of discarding them. Because nearly all captured light is put to use, sensors can deliver better low-light performance, enhanced colour accuracy and higher effective resolution. Importantly, the platform is designed to be compatible with existing CMOS sensor processes, allowing manufacturers to integrate nanophotonic imaging technology without completely overhauling their production lines. The result is a new class of ultra-compact, sub-micron pixels that maintain image quality while shrinking sensor footprints.
Mobile Camera Advancement: Brighter Images in Thinner Devices
For smartphones and other compact consumer devices, eyeo’s approach promises notable mobile camera advancement without increasing module size. By directing nearly all incoming photons to the correct pixels, sensors can capture cleaner images in dim environments, reducing noise and motion blur while preserving detail. This directly addresses long-standing trade-offs between thin device designs, pixel size and image quality. Manufacturers can design slimmer camera stacks with ultra-small pixels yet still benefit from light sensitivity improvement and more accurate colour reproduction. Because the technology is compatible with standard CMOS platforms, it can be slotted into existing supply chains, potentially accelerating adoption. For users, the impact could appear as brighter night photos, more natural skin tones and improved dynamic range, even in mid-range devices. For brands, nanophotonic imaging technology offers a new lever to differentiate cameras without relying solely on larger sensors or more lenses.
Industrial, XR and Smart City Cameras Gain New Capabilities
Beyond phones, eyeo is targeting industrial cameras, XR headsets and smart infrastructure systems that depend on reliable vision in challenging conditions. In factories, improved light efficiency and colour accuracy can enhance inspection systems that must detect subtle defects at high speed. For XR devices, smaller, more sensitive sensors help designers reduce headset size and weight while maintaining sharp, low-latency imagery. Smart city deployments, from traffic monitoring to autonomous systems, benefit from better performance in low light and adverse weather, where traditional sensors struggle. Because the nanophotonic solution enables compact, high-performance pixels, it can support multi-camera arrays or 3D-stacked CMOS architectures without a footprint penalty. Eyeo’s focus on strengthening OEM partnerships and investing in advanced stacked sensor designs suggests a roadmap that reaches deeper into professional and infrastructure-grade imaging, not just consumer photography.
From Lab Breakthrough to Scaled Camera Sensor Innovation
Eyeo’s journey illustrates how photonics research can cross into mainstream camera sensor innovation. Originating from technology developed at imec, the company has already validated its nanophotonic colour-splitting approach at a commercial foundry and engaged with tier-one customers, according to co-founder and CEO Jeroen Hoet. The new funding supports a transition from technology validation to high-volume product integration. Eyeo plans to grow its IC design and system architecture teams and invest in next-generation 3D-stacked CMOS image sensors, which can further exploit the benefits of nanophotonic structures. By attacking what Hoet describes as a 50-year-old constraint at the sensor level, the company aims to influence every modern device that relies on vision, from smartphones to autonomous systems. If successful, nanophotonic imaging technology could become a core building block of the next wave of cameras across consumer, industrial and urban environments.