Sentea

TLDR

Sentea is a Ghent-based deep tech spinoff of UGent and imec commercializing fiber optic sensing via photonic integrated circuits, founded in 2018.

Overview

Founded in 2018 and spun out of Ghent University and imec, Sentea develops photonic integrated circuit (PIC) technology for fiber optic distributed sensing. Its approach uses PICs to build compact, high-performance interrogators for fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensing systems, enabling structural health monitoring, temperature sensing, and other measurement applications at lower cost and smaller form factor than traditional instrumentation.

With $8.42M raised, Sentea is part of the dense photonics cluster centered on Ghent, which benefits from UGent's world-class photonics research group and imec's semiconductor fabrication infrastructure. The company is positioned to serve industrial, infrastructure, and aerospace sensing markets.

Sentea connects to the broader Belgian photonics ecosystem alongside Luceda Photonics and Thema Foundries.

Key People

• Karsten Verhaegen - Founder and CEO