Eliyan, a Santa Clara-based provider of die-to-die interconnect PHY technology, has raised $145 million in Series C funding led by Seligman Ventures, with participation from Cisco Investments and Lumentum. The company’s NuLink technology delivers up to 4x bandwidth and power efficiency on standard organic packaging, eliminating the need for costly silicon interposers in AI chiplet systems. The capital will advance electro-optical interconnects for AI infrastructure.
Strategic Backing Validates Interconnect Bottleneck
The round arrives as AI hyperscalers confront data movement limits that leave GPUs at 30-40% utilization. Seligman Ventures led with its managing partner Umesh Padval joining the board. Cisco Investments and Lumentum joined, adding networking and optical expertise. This follows Eliyan’s $50 million strategic round in January 2026 from AMD, Arm, Meta, and Samsung Catalyst Fund.
Memory Bandwidth Lags Compute Growth
AI performance has scaled 1,000,000x over two decades while memory bandwidth grew only ~100x. The resulting memory wall forces chip designers to seek alternatives to silicon interposers, which face supply constraints and high costs. Eliyan’s approach runs at 64 Gbps per bump on standard packaging, matching advanced packaging performance at lower cost and faster time-to-market.
NuLink Delivers on Organic Substrates
Eliyan’s NuLink PHY uses simultaneous bidirectional signaling to double bandwidth per wire. The technology supports UCIe and BoW standards and ships in volume on 14 nm ASICs. Recent NuLink-XD launch targets 224G PAM4 SerDes for electro-optical modules with up to 40% lower power. Unlike competitors focused on custom analog IP or captive packaging, Eliyan offers licensable IP that works across any foundry and substrate.
As CEO Ramin Farjadrad noted:
"People have tried to build faster compute, faster processors and GPUs. Today we are at the point that we are maybe 30-40% of the GPUs is being used, and is being mainly limited by how fast they can receive the data to process. We're solving that problem."
Mission and Strategic Capital Align
Seligman Ventures targets modern data center hardware including high-speed optical interconnects. Cisco seeks silicon for its AI networking push, while Lumentum pairs electrical interconnects with its optical components after receiving $2B from Nvidia. The investor group signals ecosystem-wide conviction rather than passive growth capital.
Chiplet Market Expands Rapidly
The chiplet interconnect and UCIe ecosystem market stands at $3.28 billion in 2026 and is projected to reach $23.47 billion by 2034. Broader chiplet market estimates range from $12.96 billion in 2025 to $492.66 billion by 2035. Silicon Box raised $658 million total with a $1.55 billion valuation, while Blue Cheetah was acquired by Tenstorrent after raising $31.3 million. These figures underscore capital flowing into chiplet infrastructure.
Founder Track Record Supports Execution
Ramin Farjadrad conceived the core technology in 2016 after prior work on standards including IEEE 802.3bz and Automotive Ethernet. The founding team previously built Aquantia, which went public and was acquired by Marvell. This domain expertise underpins the company’s rapid progress from founding in 2021 to unicorn status.
Shipments and Revenue Ramp Ahead
Eliyan plans initial chiplet shipments this year and forecasts hundreds of millions in sales by the end of 2027. The company is expanding its NuLink family and scaling its Santa Clara and Germany teams to meet demand from hyperscalers and ASIC developers.