Eliyan hits $1B valuation with $145M Series C for AI chip interconnects
What's the deal? Silicon Valley-based Eliyan has raised $145 million in an oversubscribed Series C, lifting its valuation to $1 billion. Seligman VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → led the round, with new strategic investors Cisco Investments and LumentumDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → participating. As part of the deal, Seligman managing partner Umesh Padval joins Eliyan's board.
What's the endgame? Eliyan builds electro-optical interconnects that link compute, memory, and networking inside AI data centers. Its silicon-proven NuLink PHYs and NuGear chiplets provide die-to-die, chip-to-chip, and rack-to-rack connectivity, aiming to boost bandwidth and power efficiency.
Why now? As operators build ever-larger clusters of AI accelerators, existing interconnects and power systems can't feed enough data and energy to keep chips busy. The result is throttled performance, with AI training and inference workloads stalling as chips sit idle.
What's the money for? Eliyan will fund research on faster interconnect technologies, scale manufacturing, and grow its partner ecosystem. Chief executive Ramin FarjadradDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → said the round positions the company to "accelerate product development, customer adoption, and ecosystem expansion."
Farjadrad framed the challenge as structural. "As compute, memory, packaging and networking become increasingly interconnected, traditional approaches to system connectivity are reaching their limits," he said. He added that its technology is already being evaluated or deployed by some hyperscalers, AI accelerators, and memory chip suppliers, though he declined to name them.
The signal: Eliyan's raise reflects where the AI infrastructure bottleneck is shifting — from raw compute toward the plumbing that connects it. As clusters grow, interconnect bandwidth and power efficiency are becoming the primary limits on performance, and investors are betting the fix lies in bridging electrical and optical domains.
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