Relativity Networks raises $22 million to bring a faster kind of fiber to data centers

Data center developers are expected to spend as much as $4 trillion by the end of the decade — and they’re already heavily constrained by both political and power-grid considerations in where they can build. But while most treat the speed of fiber as a given, one company is betting that faster fiber could change the geographical math behind the data center buildout. On Tuesday, Relativity Networks announced $22 million in SAFE note funding drawn by Rhapsody Venture Partners, Bell Ventures Inc., and Faster Than Glass LLC, among others. A SAFE note, in which an investment transfers into a specific numbers of shares once the company raises its first priced round, is a standard method used for pre-seed and seed rounds. The company also secured a $40 million follow-on order from a leading hyperscaler that declined to be named for this piece.