Eliyan hits unicorn status with $145M Series C, taps Cisco and Lumentum to scale AI interconnect chiplets
<cite index="41-2">Eliyan Corporation, a leader in foundational connectivity technologies enabling next-generation AI compute, memory, and networking systems, announced it has completed its Series C with a total of $145 million at a $1 billion valuation</cite>, officially joining the unicorn ranks. <cite index="41-2">The oversubscribed round was led by Seligman Ventures, with participation from additional new and existing investors, including two new strategic investors: Cisco Investments and Lumentum</cite>. The Santa Clara-based chiplet design firm addresses AI's most pressing constraint: moving data between AI chips fast enough to keep processors utilized.
<cite index="42-3">As AI infrastructure scales from single accelerators to rack-scale and cluster-scale systems, interconnect bandwidth, memory capacity, and power efficiency are increasingly becoming primary constraints on system performance</cite>. Eliyan's portfolio spans <cite index="42-3">Die-to-Die, Chip-to-Chip, and Rack-to-Rack chiplet interconnect technologies</cite>, with recent silicon-proven NuLink PHYs and NuGear chiplets addressing electrical interconnect, and new optical expansion planned. <cite index="46-2">On July 24, 2026, Eliyan introduced NuLink-XD, a 224G PAM4 SerDes built on TSMC's 3nm process and aimed at chip-to-chip and chip-to-module links</cite>, and the round reflects investor confidence in Eliyan's positioning as hyperscalers move beyond pure GPU density.
Architects designing or procuring large AI clusters should track Eliyan's interconnect roadmap as the data-movement bottleneck—not compute scarcity—increasingly defines system performance. <cite index="47-1,47-2">GPU utilization stuck at 30 to 40% in large data centers due to bandwidth constraints</cite> underscores why optical and electrical chiplet interconnects are now strategic bets. The Cisco and Lumentum participation signals customer pull from hyperscalers; <cite index="47-3">Eliyan expects revenue to grow from low millions of dollars in 2025 to hundreds of millions by end of 2027</cite>, with initial shipments expected in 2026.
Sources
- Primary source
- techstartups.com
“The challenge of connecting thousands of AI chips has become increasingly important as cloud providers and semiconductor companies invest billions in custom AI hardware.”
- beststartup.us
“Eliyan's commercial plans are ambitious and specific. According to Chief Strategy and Business Officer Patrick Soheili, the company expects revenue to grow from low millions of dollars in 2025 to hundreds of millions by end of 2027.”