Networking Startup Eliyan Draws Takeover Interest, Held Early Talks With Arm

Valida Pau reports, citing people familiar, that Eliyan, a five-year-old chip-interconnect startup valued at $1B in July, has told some investors in recent days that it received a takeover bid. It has worked with an investment bank since the summer and is likely to aim for a $3B valuation. SoftBank-owned Arm, an existing investor, held early talks about buying Eliyan but made no bid and would be unlikely to at that valuation, according to one person. Eliyan, founded in 2021, has raised more than $250M from AMD, Cisco and Meta plus venture firms including Seligman Ventures and Tiger Global, and is building optical-plus-electronic links to replace copper between chiplets and high-bandwidth memory. The takeover interest follows other AI-chip exits and rounds: Nvidia’s $20B licensing deal for Groq, Cerebras’ $56B IPO and Etched’s $21B raise, plus Marvell’s purchase of Celestial AI for up to $5.5B and Analog Devices’ $1.5B Empower Semiconductor deal. Eliyan and Arm declined to comment; the bidder is not named.