Lumai
Optics & Photonic Components · AI Chips & Accelerators
9open roles
Venture roundlatest round · Oct 2025 · 13 mo ago
2backers · PhotonVentures, Runa Capital
$747kgrants · 1 grant · CORDIS
Overview
Lumai delivers optical compute for the inference era, enabling up to 50x AI performance and 90% less power. Supports billion-parameter LLMs today.
How Lumai hires
Truth index
A 95/100
Median time to fill
107 days
Ghost roles
0%
Stale roles
0%
Reposted roles
0%
Lumai scores A on the Alion truth index (A is best, E worst), measured over 6 open roles re-checked against its own hiring board: 0% look like ghost listings, 0% have gone stale and 0% are the same role posted again. Its roles close in a median of 107 days. It measures how much of what this employer publishes turns into a real, finite search - not the employer as a workplace. How the index is computed
Funding and backers
Latest round
Venture round
Oct 2025 · 13 mo ago
Team
18
UK accounts · Dec 2025 · +80% in a year
Hiring now
9
+1 posted in 30 days
Grants
$747k
1 grant · CORDIS
Backers
2
PhotonVentures, Runa Capital
The money's age
Due for its next round
13 months since the last round · and hiring
Momentum
19/100
hiring for its size, in the news
Last sign of life
this month
a posting or a news item
The story so fareach stage dated by its source: the company's releases, the press, registers, filings
Apr 28
Launched Lumai Launches the World's First Optical Computing System for Real-Time, Billion-Parameter LLM Inference · The Manila Times
2025
Team of 18 was 10 · UK accounts
Oct 8, 2025
Raised a round Venture round
Mar 20, 2025
Raised a round Venture round
Dec 3, 2024
Raised a round Venture round
Jan 1, 2023
Won a grant $747k · CORDIS
Nov 30, 2021
Founded per the company register
Tractionpublic signals, read monthly
Hacker News stories
1
best: 3 points
Funding rounds
| Round | Date | Amount | Investors | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Venture round | Oct 2025 | — | — | find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk |
| Venture round | Mar 2025 | — | — | find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk |
| Venture round | Dec 2024 | — | — | find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk |
| Grant | Jan 2023 | $747k | — | CORDIS |
Registers and programsofficial lists and records that name the company
| Legal entity | LUMAI LIMITED | Companies House |
| Registered | 30 Nov 2021 |
Backed byfrom the funds' portfolios and accelerator catalogs
Investors in similar startupsfunds that back the companies most like this one
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Jobs
≈ $65k – $117k per year (Estimated) · Hybrid · Full-Time · Oxford
Machine Learning
Chips/EDA
Cadence Allegro
Apply
≈ $67k – $121k per year (Estimated) · Hybrid · Full-Time · Bachelor's Degree · Oxford
Python
MATLAB
Machine Learning
Chips/EDA
Ansys HFSS
Cadence Sigrity
Keysight ADS
Ansys SIwave
Apply
≈ $59k – $93k per year (Estimated) · Hybrid · Full-Time · Bachelor's Degree · Oxford
Machine Learning
Chips/EDA
LTspice
Cadence Allegro
OrCAD
MedTech
Design Controls
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≈ $46k – $89k per year (Estimated) · Hybrid · Full-Time · Bachelor's Degree · Oxford
Machine Learning
DevOps
Windows
Wi-Fi
Apply
In office · Full-Time · 8+ years exp · PhD
Machine Learning
Chips/EDA
Cadence Virtuoso
Siemens Calibre
Apply
≈ $67k – $179k per year (Estimated) · Hybrid · Full-Time · Oxford
Python
Stable Diffusion
MLIR
Machine Learning
DevOps
CI/CD
Apply
≈ $157k – $302k per year (Estimated) · In office · Full-Time · 5+ years exp · San Francisco
Machine Learning
Apply
≈ $46k – $88k per year (Estimated) · Hybrid · Full-Time · 3+ years exp · Oxford
Python
C
C++
Embedded C
AI/ML
Machine Learning
DevOps
RTOS
Linux
IoT
FreeRTOS
Apply
≈ $63k – $114k per year (Estimated) · Hybrid · Full-Time · 5+ years exp · Oxford
C++
Machine Learning
DevOps
RTOS
Linux
Apply
Visa sponsorship
A-rated
Sponsor licence
Skilled Worker
Visa route
7
Open roles in United Kingdom
In the register as Lumai Limited, Oxford, Oxfordshire
Other sponsors in the same field
NVIDIA 
Broadcom 
Graphcore 
VIAVI Solutions
See 7 open roles Alert me
UK Home Office · checked Nov 12, 2026 · Visa details by country
Growth
Hiring Momentum
25/100
Slowing
Open positions
9
0 opened / 0 closed in 30 days
Median time-to-fill
107 days
faster than 10% of the market
ATS activity
Every ~5 hours
Today
Hiring Dynamics
0%
Hiring Focus
The percentage next to each role is its share of the company's job openings over the last 90 days; the arrow shows the shift versus the previous period.
Hardware
50%
AI/ML
17% ▲
Leadership
17% ▼
Industrial Engineering
17% ▲
Activity Timeline
Added Stable Diffusion to stack
Sep 2026
Tech stack
Technologies named in job postings at Lumai over the last 12 months, by layer, with the share of postings for each.
Technologies in use
33
Postings analysed
15
Stack modernity
70/100AI adopter
Languages
Python40%
C++20%
Embedded C7%
MATLAB7%
Frameworks & libraries
MLIR13%
CUDA7%
PyTorch7%
TensorRT-LLM7%
Cloud & platforms
Linux20%
RTOS13%
FreeRTOS7%
Windows7%
AI & ML
Stable Diffusion7%
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Full Lumai tech stack
33 technologies · by team · pay by technology · changes · similar stacks
Connections
List
Graph
Found in company registers, site code, DNS and hiring. Each connection shows how sure we are and the evidence, with its source and date.
Shared investors
PhotonVenturesVia a fund
Runa CapitalVia a fund
Click a company to open it. Dashed lines are likely connections. The second step of the network is part of the Pro plan.
Owner
Same company
Same group
Likely
News
Lumai backs specialised hardware for AI prefill workloads
Longer prompts and agentic workflows are pushing AI data centres towards a separate prefill tier, Lumai says, to curb power use.
Read more
Report
Lumai Productizes Lens-Based Optical Computer
Lumai debuts a 3D optical computer for AI inference, claiming 50x GPU performance and 90% less power for billion-parameter models like Llama.
Read more
Report
Lumai Launches the World's First Optical Computing System for Real-Time, Billion-Parameter LLM Inference
New Lumai Iris Nova Server Delivers Scalable, Energy-Efficient AI Beyond the Limits of Silicon
Read more
Report
Lumai secures more than $10m investment
Optical processing breakthrough addresses limitations of AI compute
Read more
Report
Lumai Secures More Than $10M Investment to Slash AI Processing Costs, Boost Performance and Improve Data Center Sustainability
Optical Processing Breakthrough Addresses Limitations of AI Compute Lumai Lumai is tackling the limitations of AI compute by using optical processing to accelerate LLMs and other transformer-based AI. Lumai's accelerator is designed to cut AI inference co
Read more
Report
Offices
Where the company hires and what each office is for
Cities
2
Hiring now
2
Countries
2
Busiest office
Oxford
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Headquarters
Builds here
Office with open vacancies
Tap a pin for the office
Oxford
United Kingdom
HQ
7 open roles 5 posted in 90 days 71% engineering 10-50 est. staff
hires for Hardware, AI/ML, Leadership
Wood Centre for Innovation, Quarry Road
San Francisco
United States
1 open roles 1-10 est. staff
hires for Solutions