It’ll be busy in Monrovia these next few months as SiLC Technologies Inc. at long last shifts gears into full production of its silicon photonic-power machine vision systems.

The company last week unveiled a significant expansion to its Monrovia headquarters, bringing its total footprint to more than 30,000 square feet in the San Gabriel Valley suburb. It also plans to begin general production of its first commercial model, the Eyeonic Trace. And the company is eyeing a series B fundraise early next year to help propel further expansion of activity.

All of this will hopefully, in the eyes of Chief Executive Mehdi Asghari, coalesce and ride the next wave of automation in the global economy.

“There’s a major revolution going on to automate everything,” said Asghari, who founded SiLC in 2018. “Machines don’t see images like we do; they process data, so we provide data-centric information to machines so they can ‘see.’”

The quest for machines to see

Asghari formed SiLC alongside fellow industry veterans in the microchip space – a cohort who helped use silicon to transmit electrons within smaller and smaller chips. The goal, he explained, was to replicate the same with photons – light.

To this point, the company has produced several demonstration models that detect and map images with high amounts of clarity as far as 5 kilometers away. Asghari noted that some prototypes have gotten as far as 20 kilometers away.

To illustrate these capabilities, SiLC’s devices can identify a person visible through the windows of a car several kilometers away. Similarly, they can illustrate a quadcopter drone and differentiate it from a bird 5 kilometers away. At close distances, Asghari said their devices map the minuscule changes in someone’s distance based on the bubbling of a heartbeat.

“We don’t want to lead by low prices,” Asghari said. “We want to lead by best performances. On that we’re doing very well.”

SiLC is pursuing three primary applications for this technology: robotics, typically in the factory or logistics setting; counter-unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone; and vehicles.

Given the defense-oriented nature of the counter-UAV role, a 30% expansion in space to add manufacturing capabilities in-house – and out of the hands of third-party fabricators – made a lot of sense. And it allows potential customers to see from start to finish how SiLC would design and make their order.

“Visiting customers can see our capabilities, observe our production processes, conduct quality audits, or view performance demonstrations,” Asghari noted in the expansion announcement. “This setup accelerates the transition from wafers to concept demonstrators to final products in weeks, while providing a reliable domestic source for high-performance vision solutions and addressing a critical gap in U.S. manufacturing.”

In addition to the Trace device, SiLC has additional devices in various stages of development, prototyping and testing that are expected to reach production stage in a staggered cycle over the next few years.

Seeking funding and where to spend it

Investors in SiLC include Dell Technologies Capital, Sony Innovation Fund, Honda Xcelerator Ventures and others.

The company added $25 million in funding about two years ago, bringing its total at the time to about $56 million. Since that raise, the company has grown from about 55 full-time employees to about 80. Should the company close its series B round next year, as planned, Asghari said he expects further growth.

“After we close our round, we probably will expand more,” he said. “I won’t be surprised if, post series B, would exceed 100 people here.”

Asghari added that the company is hoping to obtain federal government funding toward one of its lines of counter-UAV devices.

In terms of the hiring and manufacturing market, Asghari did express some concerns about the immediate future. He said tariffs on foreign imports hurt local manufacturers than it does help them because there aren’t other mechanisms to bolster stateside manufacturing in place.

“We are a startup. We don’t have a lot of cash to pay tariffs,” Asghari said. “It gets even more complicated if we have to send something back because it wasn’t to spec.”

Asghari added that Monrovia, as a relatively affordable and easily accessible L.A. suburb, is comfortably home for SiLC. He also noted that the company has the ability to take out further space at its headquarters in the future as hiring and capabilities expand. But who they’re able to hire may dictate where those expansions are. SiLC is “actively considering” outposts in Canada and Japan if they become necessary to hire the right employees.

“I’d love to hire Americans, but if we cannot, we have to hire other nationalities and we have to go through the pain of getting those visas,” Asghari said.