There is a moment in every hardware story when the room goes quiet. The demo lands, the data holds, and the skeptics stop asking if it is real and start asking if it scales. That is the sound of physics becoming a business. Myrias Optics backed that silence with a $2.1M Seed 1 round led by MassVentures, closed in January 2026 and announced February 24, 2026. Returning support came from Hoss Investment Inc., Maroon Venture Partners, and Tenon Venture Partners, with new capital from Mill Town Capital, TiE Boston Angels, and Doug Crane. Myron Kassaraba is joining the Board, which is what happens when belief graduates to commitment.
Congratulations to John Fijol (CEO), Vincent Einck (Co-Founder, CTO), and founder Jim Watkins, along with the Myrias Optics team. Brian Shelley (CFO), Brad Mish (Business Manager), Aki Machida (Business Development), Dae Eon Jung, Raana Sabri Khiavi, Sean Sullivan, Alex Dawicki, Adlet Kassymbayev, Babak Mirzapourbeinekalaye, Steve Ponce de Leon, Amir Arbabi, and Pat Tan. This is the cast that turns lab brilliance into production reality.
The company is a UMass Amherst spin-out in Amherst, Massachusetts, built on Watkins Research Lab IP and 6 foundational patents dating back to 2012. The platform centers on wafer-level metalenses, AR waveguides, and diffractive optics produced through direct nanoimprint lithography of nanoparticle composites. In plain terms, optics designed to be manufactured, not babysat.
All-inorganic, thermally stable, high optical density structures targeting refractive index up to 2.3, with greater than 95% transparency, minimal haze, and UV stability. Performance without fragility. Precision without apology.
The Pixelligent Technologies partnership adds PixClear high-index nanocrystals and an ISO-qualified manufacturing process to the mix. That is not marketing theater. That is supply chain strategy, the kind that turns pilot lines into revenue lines.
Seed 1 capital will scale manufacturing, expand pilot production, and drive active customer programs. Add the $1.5M National Science Foundation Direct-to-Phase II award and total capital reaches $6.9M. Capital is flowing toward execution, not aspiration.
For builders in augmented reality and virtual reality, artificial intelligence data centers and datacom, consumer electronics, industrial and medical imaging, machine vision, advanced robotics, automotive lidar, defense, aerospace, and advanced imaging, the issue is not whether optics matter. It is whether your roadmap can handle components that are smaller, denser, and less forgiving, and who you trust to keep everything clear when volume stops being a theory and starts being a deadline.
