Written by Paolo Tomassone
A month ago, the IEEE Hard Tech Venture Summit brought together founders, investors, and industry partners at SRI International in Menlo Park. The format worked: ten early-stage startups pitched to investors from Bosch Capital, Althing Ventures, Monozukuri Ventures and others, while three roundtable sessions moved conversations beyond slide decks into substantive technical and commercial exchange.
What emerged was a clear picture of where hardware investment is heading — and why photonics sits at the center of it.
Energy dominated the conversation. With AI infrastructure consuming unprecedented power, the bottleneck is no longer software but physical systems: grid modernization, transmission, power delivery. Photonics and power electronics are foundational to these solutions. At the same time, speakers challenged the assumption that venture capital is the only path forward. Government contracts, strategic partnerships, and customer-funded development often outperform traditional VC rounds, especially for hardware ventures with long development cycles. And in robotics and automation, the focus has shifted from replacing human workers to orchestrating workflows where humans and machines each contribute their strengths.
These conversations continue in Boston.
On June 10-11, the IEEE Hard Tech Venture Summit moves to the Thomas M. Menino Convention and Exhibition Center, co-located with IMS2026 – the IEEE International Microwave Symposium. Over 8,000 RF and microwave professionals will gather in Boston that week, making this a rare convergence of technical depth and investor access for anyone working at the intersection of photonics, RF, and microwave technologies.
The Boston program opens with a keynote by Dan Goldman, Managing Partner at Clean Energy Ventures, followed by startup pitches and curated roundtable discussions matching founders with investors by domain and funding stage. Day two features Chet Kanojia, Co-founder and CEO of Starry Inc, and a half-day Engineering Design to Manufacturing Workshop, practical guidance on vendor relationships, manufacturing scale-up, and regulatory compliance for startups moving beyond prototyping. The summit also includes access to the IMS exhibition floor and an industry reception on the evening of June 10.
For IEEE Photonics Society members, this is an opportunity to see how photonics-enabled platforms are evaluated in venture contexts, how to articulate technical narratives in market terms, and how structured engagement can catalyze funding conversations and ecosystem relationships.
The curated format ensures relevance: every attendee – startup or investor – is reviewed by the Hard Tech Investors Committee. At the 2025 Summit, a 2:1 startup-to-investor ratio enabled meaningful interactions. Boston maintains the same approach.
The 2026 series concludes in Toronto, October 20-21.
Hardware is hard. The window is open.
