Investing in Europe’s Strategic Backbone with Astrape Networks
This era is being defined by AI and geopolitical shifts. Europe’s economic resilience and technological sovereignty depend on building smarter, faster, and more efficient digital infrastructure. The surge in AI workloads, cloud-native applications, and hyperscale data demand is overwhelming traditional network architectures and driving a fundamental shift in how data centers operate
This is precisely what attracted Join Capital to Astrape Networks, a company tackling one of the most complex, pervasive, and underestimated issues in infrastructure: optical-electronic architecture that dramatically improves performance to pave the way for all-optical connectivity.
Astrape is reinventing short-distance data center networking. Astrape’s architecture streamlines the flow, unlike conventional networks that repeatedly convert light to electricity and back again, wasting time, energy, and capacity. They have produced an ultra-fast, low-latency, energy-efficient communication tailored to the needs of AI, HPC, and modern cloud applications.
Their approach integrates Optical Packet Switching with electronic switching in a real-time, dynamic traffic management environment that has backward compatibility with existing infrastructure. This allows hyperscalers and multi-tenant operators to optimize their existing networks while future-proofing for an all-optical tomorrow.
Why now?
The data center market is projected to nearly double to over $600B by 2030, but infrastructure is struggling to keep pace. AI workloads are exploding, and horizontal interconnects between servers are becoming essential. Hundreds of new data centers are coming online each year, with old ones upgrading every 3–6 years. The demand for faster, more energy-efficient networks has never been higher.
Astrape’s value proposition is simple: enable direct, dynamic, high-speed communication between servers without energy-draining conversion steps. That’s a 60% reduction in power use for network switching, better performance, and significantly lower capex for operators .
Built in Europe, for Strategic Scale
We were also drawn to Astrape’s roots and positioning. This is European tech leadership in action. Born in Eindhoven and built by a team with deep ties to the continent’s photonics, networking, and semiconductor ecosystems. The founding trio combines academic expertise from TU Eindhoven, industry experience from NXP and ST Engineering, and the perseverance that only comes from navigating the challenges of startup life.
Additionally, the company’s affiliation with Photon Ventures and the Dutch photonics ecosystem provides opportunities for future collaboration and market access.
Risk, Reward and Resilience
While Astrape is pre-revenue, its fundamentals are strong, the roadmap is clear, and the opportunity is real. With the right backing, they have a clear path to becoming a first mover in a fast-growing category that major players like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google are already prioritizing.
The upside is an elegant solution to one of infrastructure’s hardest challenges — with the potential to reshape how Europe’s AI-driven future is built. We’re proud to co-lead this €7.9M seed round alongside Photon Ventures and the Braband Development Agency (BOM).Astrape represents exactly the kind of bold, foundational innovation that strengthens Europe’s digital backbone.
They are the kind of partner we’re excited to support long-term.
