Participated · Series A · Aug 2025

OpenLight develops a heterogeneous III-V silicon photonics process and a foundry-validated process design kit (PDK) that integrates active and passive components—such as integrated lasers, modulators, amplifiers, and detectors—into custom PASICs. Its PDK is validated at Tower Semiconductor and is used by more than 25 companies to design and fabricate production-grade PASICs across datacom, telecom, AI data centers, sensing, and quantum computing. The company holds over 410 patents related to its PDK and manufacturing of heterogeneously integrated III-V photonics. OpenLight is advancing leading-edge components including 400G modulators and indium phosphide on-chip lasers and amplifiers, and plans to develop standards-based reference PICs at 1.6T and 3.2T. The firm aims to expand its PDK library, worldwide sales, and technical support as it scales; it is headquartered in Santa Barbara, California, with offices in Silicon Valley and has raised $84 million in total funding.

Participated · Series B · Nov 2024

Aira Technologies develops AI/ML solutions aimed at improving design, deployment and control of wireless telecommunications networks. The company focuses on driving operating, energy and spectral efficiency across the RAN using a data-driven, ML-powered approach. It recently launched Naavik, a GenAI platform that enhances network operations through advanced automation and natural language processing. Naavik enables conversational interactions with network data and reduces task times from months to days, improving visibility, control and automation. Aira is led by CEO Anand Chandrasekher and intends to use its latest funding to expand and accelerate its AI/ML offerings. Aira Technologies has developed a software system that uses machine learning to charge wireless connections, delivering improvements in battery life, latency and reliability. The product targets fundamental wireless performance optimization through software rather than hardware changes. The company was founded by wireless industry veterans and researchers, including CEO Anand Chandrasekher and CTO Dr. Ravikiran Gopalan, alongside Professors Pramod Viswanath and Sreeram Kannan. Aira positions its technology as a way to materially extend device battery life and enhance connection robustness and responsiveness. The company announced a $13M equity financing, providing capital to continue development and commercialization of its ML-driven charging system.

Participated · Series C · Nov 2024

Recogni develops Generative AI inference hardware and systems, centering on a patented AI inference accelerator built on Pareto math to optimize energy efficiency and model accuracy. The company targets hyperscalers, cloud service providers and enterprises that need cost-effective, scalable inference across cloud and data-center environments. Recogni announced a $102 million Series C and a strategic collaboration with Juniper Networks to advance AI inference compute. The collaboration aims to enable the largest models to run with improved speed, accuracy and lower total cost of ownership. Recogni says the work will drive power-efficient, scalable solutions integrated with networking fabric. The company is headquartered in San Jose, California, with a presence in North America and Europe. Recogni develops an AI-powered vision cognition module (VCM) for autonomous vehicles that combines artificial intelligence, application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), and system software. The VCM is designed to deliver high-resolution, high-frame-rate image processing from multiple cameras concurrently in real time at ultra-low power consumption. The company says this architecture addresses key challenges in autonomous vehicle design and deployment. Recogni plans to use recent funding to bring its perception platform to market and to expand its engineering and go-to-market teams. The company is led by CEO R K Anand and operates out of San Jose, CA, with additional operations in Munich, Germany. Financially, Recogni recently completed a Series B financing to support commercialization efforts. Recogni builds a vision-oriented artificial intelligence platform and a Vision Cognition Processor aimed at solving endpoint inferencing for autonomous vehicles. The company focuses on delivering high-performance, low-power AI processing to enable real-time sensor fusion of visual and depth sensor data. Recogni positions its technology to help advance Level 2+ and the trajectory toward Level 3, 4, and 5 autonomy. It plans to use new funding to deliver a capable inferencing system, provide modules and software to automakers, and continue growing its engineering team. The founders have deep industry experience in system design, AI, vision, and custom silicon design. The company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., and has operations in Munich, Germany.

Participated · Series C · Feb 2024

ZEDEDA provides edge management and orchestration software (including the open-source EVE-OS architecture) that reduces the cost of managing distributed edge infrastructure while increasing visibility, security and control. The company delivers an integrated technology stack intended to simplify security and remote management of edge workloads and claims tens of thousands of nodes under management. ZEDEDA is expanding its global footprint with a newly opened Middle East headquarters in Abu Dhabi to house sales, engineering and customer support teams. It announced new regional cloud support to help customers meet data residency requirements while leveraging cloud-native technologies and AI capabilities. ZEDEDA plans to recruit local talent and develop partnerships with Middle East solution providers to strengthen its ecosystem. The company reports teams in the United States, Germany and India and positions the Abu Dhabi hub as a fourth strategic operations center. ZEDEDA offers edge management and orchestration software that reduces the cost of managing distributed edge infrastructure while increasing visibility, security and control. Its platform delivers instant time to value and supports modern AI-based applications with offerings such as ZEDEDA Edge Application Services and ZEDEDA Edge Kubernetes Service. The company reports tens of thousands of nodes under management and said nodes under management grew more than 300% year-over-year. Annual recurring revenue grew more than 250% year-over-year, and ZEDEDA counts 12 Global and Fortune 500 customers, including an automaker standardizing ZEDEDA across 70,000 dealerships, manufacturing facilities and service centers in 153 countries. ZEDEDA plans to use the new funding to expand sales and marketing, accelerate research and development, and continue hiring for sales and engineering roles globally. The company has teams in the United States, Germany and India and has achieved ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification. ZEDEDA offers an edge management and orchestration platform that enables deployment and connection of cloud-native workloads—such as AI and computer vision—across distributed industrial environments. Its solution integrates with Emerson’s DeltaV automation system to extend DeltaV to the distributed edge and bridge IT and OT. The company is deployed within Fortune 500 firms across manufacturing, automotive, energy, and retail. ZEDEDA has quadrupled its nodes under management since 2021, signalling rapid operational growth. It recently closed a $26 million Series B financing. The firm positions its platform to modernize existing operations by delivering software-defined automation and extending cloud capabilities to the edge. The expanded relationship with Emerson includes both commercial integration and a strategic investment from Emerson Ventures. Zededa offers a software-as-a-service edge orchestration and virtualization stack that manages edge devices, guides deployments, and runs apps on bare-metal hardware or in virtual machines. Its product builds on the Linux Foundation’s EVE-OS and is vendor-agnostic, supporting devices from OEMs like SuperMicro. Use cases include monitoring sensors and security cameras, updating software in cell towers, and industrial deployments across IT infrastructure, industrial automation and oil & gas. The company reports its edge devices under management grew 4x in the past year while revenue grew 7x. Zededa has roughly a 100-person team across the U.S., Germany and India and plans to expand R&D, sales and marketing within the year. Future product focus includes improving ease of use and security, broadening integrations and enabling legacy-application updates and simplified AI/ML solutions. ZEDEDA provides a cloud-native, vendor-agnostic orchestration platform that enables enterprises, OEMs and system integrators to deploy and manage any application on any hardware at the distributed edge. Its as-a-service solution offers visibility, control and security for on‑premises, near‑premises and field edge deployments and supports any cloud or on‑premises system. The company plans to use new capital to scale operations and accelerate R&D, sales and marketing. ZEDEDA announced a highly oversubscribed $12.5M expansion to its Series A and has $28.5M in total funding to date. It expects to more than triple the number of customer edge nodes under management by mid‑2021. ZEDEDA is headquartered in San Jose, CA, with offices in Bangalore and Pune, India.

Participated · Series C · Jun 2022

Tibit Communications, based in Petaluma, CA and led by President and CEO Richard Stanfield, builds pluggable OLTs (MicroPlug™) and a small, low‑power 10G bridge ASIC for PON service providers. The MicroPlug’s SFP+ form factor enables OLT functionality to be hosted on commercial Ethernet switch platforms, expanding carrier architecture options. Tibit’s bridge ASIC supports a rich feature set across both ITU‑T and IEEE 10G PON standards. The company is investing in a 25G ASIC program to advance beyond its 10G product line and address higher‑speed enterprise, multi‑gig residential and 5G wireless use cases. Tibit is a founding member and contributor to the 25GS‑PON MSA, which aims to standardize 25 gigabit PON and includes nearly 50 participants worldwide. Financially, Tibit completed a $30M Series C to support its product roadmap and to scale manufacturing capabilities. Tibit Communications designs the MicroPlug OLT, a next-generation access device that implements PON Layer 1 and 2 functionality inside the form factor of a transceiver optics case. The MicroPlug plugs into standards-based, commercially available switches, replacing large proprietary chassis with multiple internal switching layers. This architecture enables carriers a more flexible and cost-effective fiber access deployment. By eliminating unnecessary management layers within the OLT itself, Tibit enables PON management to be virtualized and moved into a carrier’s cloud architecture. The company is led by President and CEO Richard Stanfield and is based in Petaluma, CA. Tibit recently closed a $25M Series B and intends to use the funds to continue expanding operations and its business reach. Tibit Communications develops small, low‑power and low‑cost pluggable devices that virtualize the access network by allowing high‑performance Ethernet switching systems to replace traditional access equipment. Its initial products, the Tibit MicroPlug OLT and ONT, provide FTTx PON fiber access from Ethernet switches, routers, or almost any device with an Ethernet port. Tibit pairs the MicroPlug hardware with a software solution to connect with Software Defined Networking (SDN) orchestrators. The company positions its products to lower costs and simplify network architecture for operators. Tibit is led by co‑founder and CEO Richard Stanfield and is based in Petaluma, CA. Financially, the company raised $13.8M in a Series A funding round.