Ask HN: Could Luminous possibly make new chips with $9 m funding?

Several companies, including Luminous (https://www.luminouscomputing.com), are working on photonic CPUs that use light instead of electricity to transmit information within the chip. Putting aside that this seems enormously more expensive, how is could they possibly hope to even come closer to that goal with only $9 m in funding?

Sure, they will raise more money later, but could you really hope to even get started on a new chip _technology_ for just a minuscule fraction of what Intel spends on a small incremental update to an existing chip _design_?