Relativity Networks has raised a $22 million SAFE investment (a simple agreement for future equity), as the hollow core fiber (HCF) cable manufacturer also secured a $40m contract with a hyperscaler.

The company, founded by Jason Eichenholz, specializes in providing fiber, including hollow-core fiber, for its clients, as the company seeks to support the demands of AI data center operators.

Today's (August 19) announcement follows the company's recent success with Italian optical cable manufacturer Prysmian, with both companies claiming last month to have produced their highest-density hollow-core fiber cable to date. This test incorporated Relativity Networks' ChronoCore hollow-core fibers.

Relativity noted that its $22m SAFE investment is more than double its target, and was raised in a round drawn by new investors including Rhapsody Venture Partners, Bell Ventures Inc., and Faster Than Glass LLC.

Meanwhile, the company said it's also struck a $40m follow-on order from a "leading hyperscaler."

Orlando-based Relativity didn't name the hyperscaler, but noted that the customer recently tested Relativity Networks' ChronoCore advanced optical networking technology linking two data centers.

"AI is no longer scaling inside a data center. It is scaling across geography," said Eichenholz, founder and CEO of Relativity Networks.

"The next great AI infrastructure challenge is making thousands of distributed GPUs behave like one machine, even when the power they depend on is miles apart. ChronoCore is purpose-built for that world, giving hyperscalers the low-latency connectivity needed to scale AI wherever power is available."

Relativity's ChronoCore HCF is produced at Prysmian's facility in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, and cabled at Prysmian's plant in Claremont, North Carolina. Couplers, fiber characterization, and installation training are performed in Orlando, Florida.

Extending the range of the fiber, building on Prysmian partnership

Hollow core fiber is seen as a potentially transformational upgrade from traditional fiber due to its design. HCF features an air-filled center channel that is surrounded by a ring of glass tubes, akin to a honeycomb pattern. The design allows for higher capacity with minimized chromatic dispersion, while light is able to travel significantly faster.

Traditional fiber-optic cables have typically limited data centers to within 60 kilometers (37 miles) of power providers - or to one another - due to latency constraints, however, HCF extends this range to 90 kilometers (56 miles).

The technology is seen as important due to its extended reach, lower latency, and higher bandwidth. Jason Eichenholz, founder and CEO of Relativity Networks, has previously told DCD that there's huge demand for this technology from hyperscalers, as demand for AI workloads increases.

Relativity's partnership with Prysmian is largely centered around producing cabling to support the demands of AI data center operators.

As part of the joint project with Prysmian, Relativity said that it was able to produce its highest-density HCF cable to date, which consisted of 24 fibers in a single 10-millimeter cable. In testing with Dura-Line, the cable was installed reliably in standard microducts, confirming the high-density cable's readiness for real-world deployment.

The cable provides 24 low-latency pathways to connect AI data centers over greater distances than conventional glass fiber allows, which means that Relativity can support hyperscalers in navigating issues with access to electrical power.

"Relativity Networks changes where AI infrastructure can be built," said Carsten Boers, managing partner at Rhapsody Venture Partners. "Power availability is the key constraint on data center placement. ChronoCore carries light roughly 47 percent faster than solid-core glass fibers, so distributed sites can sit that much farther apart within the same latency budget - more than doubling the area an operator can build in. It's deployed today, validated with partners like Prysmian, and the order book is well ahead of our expectations."