Led · Series A · Jul 2026

Elio develops sensors that prioritize AI-driven capture rather than human-visible imagery, using dynamic optical layers of micromirrors and on-optics computation so AI can decide what to capture in real time. Its approach treats sensing like software: modules can gain new capabilities after shipping as AI learns to correct and interpret the optics' behavior. The company describes applications across microscopy, semiconductor inspection, robotics and defense, including label-free live-cell observation, seeing through stacked chip layers to find buried defects, multi-sensing robotic modules, and long-range detection of small fast-moving threats. Elio is led by founder and CEO Nadav Grossinger and CTO Nitay Romano, who previously co-built Pebbles Interfaces (acquired by Meta) and led the physical-sensing stack for Meta’s AR/VR headsets. The firm emphasizes its core technology’s basis in diffractive optics and prior commercial and research experience of its leadership. Elio is headquartered in San Mateo, California.

Participated · Series C · Jun 2026

HyperLight develops high-performance integrated photonics based on thin-film lithium niobate (TFLN), commercialized as its TFLN Chiplet™ Platform. The platform targets a range of optical interconnect applications including data center pluggables, coherent datacom and telecom modules, and co-packaged optics, and offers products supporting 200G-per-lane operation with 400G-per-lane solutions now sampling. The company emphasizes ultra-high modulation bandwidth, CMOS-level drive voltage, and ultra-low optical loss to reduce power consumption at higher lane speeds. HyperLight has established a strategic manufacturing partnership with UMC and Wavetek for high-volume foundry production on both 6-inch and 8-inch wafers. With the $80 million Series C, the company plans to expand manufacturing capacity, accelerate customer qualification, scale its platform, and deepen partnerships across foundry, semiconductor, networking, and systems integration domains.

Participated · Series A · May 2026

GridCARE develops the Energize platform, which uses physics-based AI models to evaluate grid conditions—congestion, outages, weather, and demand fluctuations—in real time to locate underutilized power capacity. The company positions this approach as a way to shorten interconnection timelines for large data centers and AI facilities from years to months by unlocking existing grid capacity. GridCARE reports active projects across more than a dozen markets representing over 2 gigawatts of prospective AI compute capacity and cites a Portland General Electric collaboration that identified a pathway to unlock more than 400 megawatts with 80 megawatts expected online in 2026. Co-founder and CTO Ram Rajagopal is a Stanford professor on leave, and the company emphasizes working collaboratively with utilities. GridCARE frames the market opportunity around a “Time-to-Energize Crisis,” arguing power availability is a growing bottleneck for AI expansion. Financially, the company recently raised a $64 million Series A in an oversubscribed round that materially increased its valuation versus a round less than a year earlier.

Participated · Series A · Apr 2026

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.

Led · Equity · Apr 2026

NeuBird AI builds an autonomous production ops agent that reasons across telemetry, correlates signals, delivers root cause analysis and performs remediation in real time across complex hybrid and multi-cloud environments. The company launched its product to general availability in December 2024 and has progressed from POCs into production deployments with enterprise customers. NeuBird reports that customers have resolved over 1 million alerts, saved more than $2 million in engineering hours, and achieved up to a 90% reduction in mean time to resolution. Its next-generation engine, NeuBird AI Falcon, extends capabilities to predictive risk detection and infrastructure cost optimization. The company has earned AWS Generative AI Competency designations, was selected for the AWS Generative AI Accelerator, and joined the Microsoft for Startups Pegasus Program backed by M12 to gain preferred access to cloud customer networks. With the new funding, NeuBird plans to accelerate product innovation and scale global go-to-market efforts to put production ops agents into more enterprise teams.