|
Welcome back! It’s Valida.
Semiconductor M&A has been humming. One of the next deals could be for Eliyan, whose technology allows separate chips inside an AI system to talk to one another more quickly and efficiently.
The five-year-old startup, valued at $1 billion in July, has notified some of its investors in the last few days that it received a takeover bid, according to people familiar with the matter. It has been working with an investment bank since the summer and is likely to aim for a valuation of $3 billion, according to some of the people.
Softbank-owned Arm, an existing investor, held early talks about potentially buying Eliyan, but it didn’t make a bid and would be unlikely to do so at that valuation, said a person familiar with the matter.
The takeover interest follows big exits for other chip firms, such as Nvidia’s $20 billion licensing deal for Groq and Cerebras’ $56 billion IPO, as well as high-valuation funding rounds, such as Etched’s $21 billion fundraise. This has lifted founders’ hopes of a rich exit.
Spokespeople for Eliyan and Arm declined to comment.
Founded in 2021, Eliyan has raised more than $250 million from some of the world’s largest semiconductor and technology companies, such as AMD, Cisco and Meta, as well as venture firms Seligman Ventures and Tiger Global Management.
Eliyan is developing technology that helps large chipmakers solve a key bottleneck in AI systems: the traditional copper links that chiplets use to send data to each other and to high-bandwidth memory can be slow. That can leave AI chips idle no matter how capable and fast they are. Eliyan says its product solves some of the problems with copper with a solution that uses light and electronics.
“People are looking for a replacement for copper that has limited distance, and we’ve come up with an optical solution that provides all the features of a copper interconnect in terms of reliability, power, cost, but much longer reach... to connect these AI racks together,” Eliyan co-founder Ramin Farjadrad told The Information’s TITV in July.
Large buyers have been snapping up chip components makers in a bid to make AI chips run more efficiently. In February, Marvell Technologies bought Celestial AI, which develops optical interconnect technology, for up to $5.5 billion, even though the smaller company hadn’t generated any revenue at the time of the deal. In July, Analog Devices bought Empower Semiconductor, whose devices help AI chips manage electricity more efficiently, for $1.5 billion. —Cory Weinberg contributed to this report.
|
Upcoming Events
The Information's WTF Summit returns to Napa Valley, bringing together the women shaping tech, media and finance. Confirmed speakers include Whitney Wolfe Herd (Bumble), Anne Wojcicki (23andMe Research Institute), Kim Posnett (Goldman Sachs) and comedian & entrepreneur Whitney Cummings, with more to come. Expect candid conversations and a room built for meaningful exchange. Tickets are selling fast—reserve your spot now.
More details
The Information's Dakin Campbell will host a panel discussion on the evolving landscape of public listings and exit opportunities during SF Tech Week, sponsored by NYSE.
More details
|
Gift Subscription