The Venture Codex

Led · Equity · Mar 2026

Normal Computing develops Normal EDA, an AI platform that applies frontier techniques (including auto-formalization combining LLMs with formal logic) to accelerate semiconductor design and automate DV/RTL workflows. In parallel it advances the Carnot hardware program to produce physics-based ASICs aimed at dramatically improving energy efficiency; the company completed tape-out of CN101 in August 2025. Normal says it partners with more than half of the top ten semiconductor companies by revenue and has earned trust to drive production silicon. The company has raised over $85 million to date, including a $50 million strategic round led by Samsung Catalyst Fund in March 2026. Normal was founded in 2022 and is headquartered in New York, with offices in San Francisco, London, and Copenhagen, and receives programmatic support from ARIA for some of its work.

Participated · Equity · Jan 2026

Eliyan develops advanced connectivity technologies including silicon-proven NuLink™ PHYs and NuGear™ chiplet families that target I/O, memory-expansion and power-efficiency challenges in modern compute infrastructure. The company is expanding into optical interconnect to complement its existing electrical interconnect portfolio and to support heterogeneous, co-packaged, and bandwidth-intensive compute fabrics. Eliyan positions its platform to span intra-package electrical interconnects through system-level optical fabrics for scale-up and scale-in AI networks. The company is led by CEO and Co-Founder Ramin Farjadrad and is based in Santa Clara, California. Financially, Eliyan raised $145 million in a Series C at a $1 billion valuation. It plans to use the new capital to accelerate product and interconnect development, broaden ecosystem partnerships, and scale manufacturing.

Participated · Series D · Aug 2024

Groq has repositioned itself from a semiconductor maker into a provider of AI inference compute infrastructure following the sale of most of its chip assets to Nvidia in late 2025. After that transaction Groq's previous leadership and a majority of its engineering team moved to Nvidia. The company currently operates a network of 13 data centers and plans to expand total capacity to roughly 200 megawatts by the end of 2027. Groq raised $650 million in the most recent financing led by Disruptive and Infinitum to fund that expansion. In September 2025 it previously raised $750 million at a $6.9 billion valuation with investors that included Samsung, Cisco and BlackRock. Groq is positioning itself to address growing demand for reliable, cost-efficient inference services for deployed AI models.

Participated · Series C · Mar 2024

Celestial AI develops the Photonic Fabric, an optical interconnect technology platform that provides seamless chip-to-chip to server-to-server networking for AI computing systems. The Photonic Fabric is designed to deliver a generational leap in bandwidth, low latency and energy efficiency compared with copper-based interconnects. The company positions the technology as foundational for data center computing, networking and memory systems to enable next‑generation AI architectures. Celestial AI plans to accelerate commercial deployment, strengthen its volume manufacturing supply chain, scale production capabilities, and deepen strategic partnerships with foundries, including TSMC. Company leadership says the technology addresses the data‑movement limits of copper interconnects and enables system designs that can scale processors while reducing power consumption. Financially, Celestial AI has raised $520 million to date, including a final close of a $255 million Series C1 to support commercialization and supply‑chain scaling. Celestial AI is the creator of the Photonic Fabric, an optical interconnect technology platform for compute and memory. The Photonic Fabric enables disaggregation of compute and memory and, the company says, delivers over 25x greater bandwidth and memory capacity while reducing latency and power consumption by up to 10x versus existing optical interconnect alternatives and copper. The company reports successful validation of the technology in silicon and says this has driven tremendous demand from hyperscalers. Amid growing demand for generative AI and next‑generation data centers, Celestial AI positions the Photonic Fabric as a solution to constraints including utility power availability, memory capacity and high cost of operation. The company plans to use the Series C proceeds to execute multiple large‑scale customer collaborations focused on commercializing the Photonic Fabric platform. Celestial AI presents the Photonic Fabric as the foundational technology for optically scalable, disaggregated data center compute and memory to enable sustainable and profitable AI advancements. Celestial AI has developed a photonics-based optical interconnect architecture for compute-to-compute, compute-to-memory and on-chip data transmission aimed at addressing data-movement bottlenecks in AI workloads. The company says its photonic fabric scales across multiple-chip systems, is compatible with industry interconnect standards such as CXL and PCIe, and can enable memory disaggregation. Celestial claims its technology delivers 25x higher bandwidth and 10x lower latency and power consumption than optical alternatives and can reduce the electricity spent on data movement, indirectly boosting a chip's effective compute capacity. It offers the interconnect through a licensing program and reports engagement with several "tier-one" customers, including hyperscalers and processor and memory companies. Celestial also sells an AI accelerator chip, Orion, built on its photonics architecture, though the article notes engineering challenges remain for photonics-based chips at scale. Founded by David Lazovsky and Preet Virk with architect Phil Winterbottom, the company began as a portfolio company of The Engine. The company has around 100 employees and expects to grow to about 130 by the end of the year. Celestial AI builds ML/HPC accelerators based on its proprietary Photonic Fabric™ that uses integrated photonics for high-bandwidth, low-power data movement and optical access to memory and compute. Its core product line is the Orion AI accelerator family, which combines electronic compute with photonic data movement and accompanying system software for simpler, efficient mapping of data and compute. The company says this hybrid approach reduces power spent on data movement and enables redistribution of power to compute, improving performance, latency, and TCO versus electronic-only systems. Celestial AI positions its software and multi-chip scaling as competitive differentiators as AI model complexity grows and cites an Omida addressable market projection of over $70 billion in 2025. The company plans to use new capital to expand its global engineering team, advance product development, and pursue strategic supplier engagements, including Broadcom, to commercialize Orion products. No revenue or user metrics are reported in the article.

Participated · Equity · Feb 2024

Skylo operates a commercial direct-to-device (D2D) non-terrestrial network that enables smartphones, vehicles, and IoT devices to connect via existing satellites when cellular networks are unavailable. Its commercial NTN vRAN is a 3GPP standards-based, cloud-native base station and core that works with existing chipsets, satellite operators, network operators, and device makers. Skylo provides service to mobile network operators and MVNOs as a complement to terrestrial networks and has facilitated millions of messages and connected millions of consumers across five continents. The company recently expanded commercial coverage to include Brazil, Australia, New Zealand and now covers the entirety of the U.S., including Alaska, Hawaii, and U.S. territories, with expansion delivered in partnership with Viasat. Skylo says its service has been used during natural disasters in the U.S. to allow users to request help when terrestrial networks were unavailable. The company plans further global commercialization and public demonstrations (e.g., MWC Barcelona 2025) while targeting industries such as agriculture, maritime, logistics, and mining in addition to mass-market consumer devices. Skylo Technologies, based in Mountain View, CA, provides direct-to-device satellite connectivity that lets smartphones and IoT cellular devices connect directly over existing satellites. Its commercial Non-terrestrial networks (NTN) vRAN is a 3GPP standards-based, cloud-native base station and core that manages devices connected over satellite. Skylo works with existing satellite operators, network operators, and device makers to provide roaming between terrestrial and satellite networks. The company focuses on connected services for people outdoors and machine workflows across industries such as agriculture, maritime, logistics, mining, and mass-market consumer devices. Led by CEO Parth Trivedi, Skylo plans to use the new funding to support its direct-to-device solution and expand scale and operations to make non-terrestrial networks more accessible. The company raised $37M in funding in the reported round. Skylo builds connectivity for Internet of Things devices by linking sensors, industrial equipment and logistics hardware to satellite networks using the cellular-based Narrowband IoT protocol. Its network is already deployed on geostationary satellites, enabling customers to get up and running without waiting for new constellations. Skylo ships a Skylo Hub terminal—roughly 8" by 8"—that can be battery-powered or plugged in and acts as a hotspot for standard IoT sensors and devices; the company says its hardware sells for under $100. The company claims connectivity can cost as little as $1 per seat and that its solution can deliver cost savings of up to 95% versus other satellite IoT options. Skylo has completed tests with commercial partners in private enterprise and government across industries including fisheries, maritime logistics and automotive. Financially, Skylo has raised $116 million to date, including a $103 million Series B and a prior $13 million Series A.