Raman spectroscopy can identify chemicals with atomic precision, but the equipment requires a lab, making continuous monitoring in biomanufacturing plants or portable use impractical. An MIT spin-off, Perceptra, aims to integrate decades-old chemical analysis technology onto silicon.
Perceptra’s photonic chips replace large dispersive spectrometers with on-chip tunable lasers and detectors, along with AI to decode the signals. The result fits in your hand and costs a fraction of the price.
Today, the startup scored €1.2 million from PhotonDelta, Europe’s photonics accelerator. Perceptra will use the cash, structured as a loan, to build its first fully photonic Raman sensor and relocate its R&D from San Francisco to the Netherlands.
Making chemical analysis work like a digital thermometer
Amir Atabaki, CEO and co-founder, spent years at MIT’s photonics labs grappling with light on silicon. He saw Raman sensing, Nobel Prize tech from 1930, frozen in time while trillion-dollar industries needed it everywhere. Why not shrink it like we shrank computers?
The tech swaps benchtop optics for photonic integrated circuits (PICs). Its key features include AI-powered signal extraction from tiny detectors that are 10x cheaper, enabled by existing photonic fabs.
Unlike Wasatch Photonics, Metrohm, B&W Tek, Perceptra integrates everything onto silicon.
What’s next?
The money funds their first commercial sensor, Dutch relocation for PhotonDelta’s ecosystem (fabs, talent, supply chain), and early biomanufacturing pilots.
