
recent news
3.2021
Iris Light selected to participate in Luminate 2021
Iris Light is proud to join Luminate, the world's leading accelerator for optics and photonics technologies based in Rochester, NY. Rochester has a long-standing influence in the industry, ranging from household names such as Kodak, Xerox, Bausch and Lomb, to the recent addition of AIM Photonics (silicon photonics), and the academic power of the University of Rochester (featuring an entire college dedicated to optics) and Rochester Institute of Technology (home to one of the first microelectronics degrees). The region is host to hundreds of optics companies and thousands of optics professionals. Iris Light receives mentorship from industry leaders, industry connections, programming, and much more.
09.2020
Iris Light secures Air Force STTR – Phase II
Iris Light Technologies has been awarded an AFWERX Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II contract with partner Boise State University. The team is working with the Air Force Research Lab (AFRL) to advance hybrid silicon-nanomaterial opto-electronic devices for silicon photonics.
02.2019
Iris Light accepted to 2019 New Venture Challenge (NVC)
90+ teams applied, 30 were accepted to Phase II. The NVC is the University of Chicago’s nationally ranked accelerator program that has graduated more than 230 startup companies still in operation today. Learn more about NVC and the next steps for Iris Light here.
12.2020
Iris Light joins Third Derivative and receives investment
D3 is an initiative pioneered by the Rocky Mountain Institute (https://rmi.org/) and the New Energy Nexus (https://www.newenergynexus.com/) and major corporates including Microsoft and Shell among others. Iris Light was selected from a group of more than 620 applicants from 61 countries to join Third Derivative's inaugural class of early-stage climate tech startups called Cohort 417.
05.2019
Iris Light selected as a finalist for the 2019 Edward L. Kaplan, '71, New Venture Challenge (NVC)
Iris Light was selected as one of 12 teams to advance to the finals on June 6. NVC finalists will present to a panel of distinguished judges and compete for over $1 million in case and in-kind services.