SpaceX Alumni Raise $50 Million for Data Center Optical Tech

Ed Ludlow

Tue, February 17, 2026 at 9:31 PM GMT+9 2 min read

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(Bloomberg) – Mesh Optical Technologies, a startup working on hardware used to move data at high speeds within data centers, raised a $50 million funding round led by Joshua Kushner’s Thrive Capital to scale manufacturing of the technology in the US.

Other investors backing Los Angeles-based Mesh, which came out of stealth this week, include Also Capital and Banner VC, the company told Bloomberg. The firm’s valuation was not disclosed.

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Mesh develops optical transceivers, small devices that send and receive data using light, allowing machines to communicate at very high speeds. These devices are crucial for data centers, where training and running artificial intelligence models requires moving massive amounts of data between servers quickly and efficiently.

To handle this demand, data centers use fiber-optic components that link servers with storage and networking systems. Nvidia Corp., a leader in the chips and computers that power AI workloads, is also active in developing this networking technology, underscoring how faster connectivity is becoming just as critical as raw processing power in the race to develop the most advanced AI models.

Mesh says its first product, a small device called Alpha C1, is faster, more power efficient and lower latency than existing optical transceivers. The company also hopes to deploy its technology in space in the future.

“Our in-space infrastructure will be connected by lasers,” Mesh said in a statement. “And deep space probes will beam photons home from the cosmos, billions of miles away.”

The supply chains for these technologies sit largely outside of the US and are dominated by China. Mesh plans to use the capital raised to build and operate the “largest optical manufacturing footprint outside of Asia” by 2027, the company said in the statement.

The company was founded last year by alumni of Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Travis Brashears, Mesh’s chief executive officer, spent five years at SpaceX building the laser systems that connect thousands of Starlink satellites and leading the teams behind its key optical technology. Cameron Ramos, Mesh president, spent more than six years at SpaceX developing software and control systems. Co-founder and product leader Serena Grown-Haeberli also previously worked at SpaceX.

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