LyteLoop Raises $40 M to Launch Its Photonic Data Storage Technology that Could Include Quantum Encryption Into Orbit

(TechCrunch) LyteLoop has raised $40 million to help it leapfrog the remaining engineering hurdles in developing its patent pending photonic method of data storage which puts data in a constant state of perpetual motion. Achieved through the use of ultra-high bandwidth lasers, data now moves in an endless circulating loop, taking up less space and using less electricity.
LyteLoop’s new funding will provide it with enough runway to achieve its next major milestone: putting into orbit within the next three years three prototype satellites equipped with its novel data storage technology. The company intends to build and launch six of these, which will demonstrate how its laser-based storage medium operates on orbit.
LyteLoop CEO Ohad Harlev said five years into its founding, the company is very confident in the science that underlies its data storage methods — and thrilled about the advantages it could offer over traditional data warehousing technology used today. Security, for instance, gets a big boost from LyteLoop’s storage paradigm.
“Everybody on every single data center has the same same possible maximum level of data security,” he said. “We can provide an extra four layers of cybersecurity, and they’re all physics-based. Anything that can be applied on Earth, we can apply in our data center, but for example, the fact that we’re storing data on photons, we could put in quantum encryption, which others can’t. Plus, there are big security benefits because the data is in motion, in space, and moving at the speed of light.”