Startups

Humble keeps excess inventory out of the Philippines’ landfills • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in circular economy, Climate, green, Humble Sustainability, Philippines, recycling, seedstars, Southeast Asia, StartupsNo Comments

Excess inventory, including returned items, from e-commerce, logistics and retail companies often ends up being disposed. Manila-based Humble Sustainability is a circular economy startup that wants to keep it out of the Philippines’ landfills. Since its launch, it has processed more than 150,000 items like clothing, consumer electronics and household appliances that are either resold through Thrift, its Shopee storefront, or passed onto B2B recyclers and resellers. The company announced today it has raised $750,000 in an oversubscribed seed round led by Seedstars International Ventures, with participation from iSeed Ventures and angel investors including Ula co-founder Alan Wong, Sagar Achanta (who has held product leadership roles at Amazon), Booking.com and Disney+, and investors Paco Sandejas and Richard Eldridge. Humble will use the funding to expand its network of partners and buyers, and grow its team, including hiring department heads. The company also plans to bring its tech development fully in-house and start work on long-term initiatives like a carbon footprint tracker. Humble Sustainability founders Niña Opida and Josef Werker. Image Credits: Humble Sustainability Humble was founded in 2021 by CEO Josef Werker and COO Niña Opida. Werker told ZebethMedia that the two met five years ago, after holding leadership positions at different startups, and wanted to see how tech innovation could be applied to the planet. The first version of Humble was a circular trading solution for children’s clothing, before it expanded into other items. “Neither of us are environmental scientists or sustainability experts at all,” Werker said. “We simply had a love for the earth and spotted an opportunity to apply our little experience of building businesses towards it.” Humble has worked with 20 companies so far. The process of getting items starts by receiving inventory for assessment, so Humble can see what condition they are in and figure out their value (as the company grows, it will automate parts of the quality control process). Then it decides whether to list items on Thrift, or sell them in bulk to its B2B network. Once their plans are approved, they sign an agreement with clients, who can monitor the status of their items and receive money from their sales. Humble plans to launch a live dashboard on its B2B platform so clients can track revenue, inventory and environmental impact in real time. Werker says without Humble, unwanted inventory would either go to a traditional liquidator (for higher-value items) or end up in a landfill. There are other solutions like internal employee sales, but those only account for a small percentage. “With Humble, it’s full consolidated,” he said. “We will take everything, ensuring that nothing ends up in a landfill. The good-quality items are on Thrift and high value is extracted, everything else is properly brought back into circularity through our B2B network and we will extract value that can be passed back to the client.” All of the investors in Humble’s seed round are actively involved in the business. For example, Seedstars introduced Humble to people its international network that the company has closed deals with, said Werker. Humble is also participating in Seedstars’ three-month growth track program. Wong and Achanta have worked together at different companies, including Amazon, Booking.com and Ula and are guiding Humble with advice on its tech development and long-term roadmap. In a statement, Seedstars partner Patricia Sosrodjojo said, “We are delighted to support Humble in the journey to reduce waste and promote circular living. Humble is a great fit to Seedstars’ thesis of supporting early-stage companies that can create meaningful impact with an attractive business model.”

Laid off from your tech job? Day One wants to give you $100,000 to start a company • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in day one, Layoffs, Startups, stripe, TwitterNo Comments

Day One Ventures, a venture firm launched in 2018 with a pitch to combine venture capital acumen with marketing and communications support, has launched a program aimed explicitly at those impacted by tech layoffs this year. The program, titled “Funded Not Fired”, will write $100,000 checks into 20 startup teams by the end of the year. Top businesses from the cohort will then get follow-up capital from Day One Ventures commitment to lead their pre-seed round with a $1 million check. In total, the firm is allocating at least $5 million from its $52.5 million fund to back founders spinning out of turbulent startups. Founder and GP Masha Bucher, who left her former life in Russia as a politician and TV reporter to become a venture capitalist, spun up the program in the wake of Stripe and Twitter’s layoffs over the past week. Her bet? At least 0.1% to 1% of the thousands of employees impacted by tech layoffs this year could become incredible founders. The program is essentially a formalized double click on venture’s obsession with mafia founders, aka people who left high-profile gigs at even higher-profile companies to start their own business. The added layer of complexity, however, is the downturn that has somewhat defined tech’s 2022. For example, if I was laid off from my job, I don’t know if my first thought would be to take a bet on myself and start a risky business most likely to fail. Per Bucher, however, that mindset is exactly what would weed me (and presumably a lot of laid off tech employees) out from the entrepreneurship world anyways. “I think if you’re afraid of risk, you’re just not going to be a great founder,” Bucher said. “Don’t get me wrong, starting a company in this time when so many changes have happened over the last three years,” is hard, she added, saying that it definitely makes sense if people want to find a job or work with founders instead of become one. Other examples of programs spun up to help activate the next generation of entrepreneurs includes Z Fellows and Cleo Capital’s former fellowship for laid-off workers. She made sure to emphasize that the program is “not charity” and that folks from Stripe and Twitter would not get preferential treatment when pitching Day One Ventures (even though they were the inspiration for the program). Aspiring founders don’t need an incorporated company, or even a fully flushed out startup idea, to apply to the program. The form asks for founders background, top ideas, metrics, and the why behind their journey into entrepreneurship. In order to be qualified for the accelerator, at least one co-founder must have been recently laid off, they must go full time on the startup, and be able to show three references. The deadline to apply is November 25, 2022 and final decisions will be made by December 20, 2022. “Compared to all other VCs who are taking time off until next year, we’re going to be working until December 31st – which is totally fine,” Bucher said. “I just feel like times like this are just a perfect opportunity for us to do a little more, to go the extra mile, to not take time off and just hopefully back some companies which in the future will be the size of Coinbase, Airbnb and Stripe.”

Five spectacular reasons to go to TC Sessions: Crypto • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in Crypto, Startups, TC Sessions: Crypto, TC Sessions: Crypto 2022No Comments

Still on the fence about going to TC Sessions: Crypto on November 17 in Miami? There’s no better time or way to get the latest news, trends and expert insight on the rapidly changing, always evolving world of crypto. And in case you haven’t heard, this daylong conference is no one-trick pony. We go deep on blockchain, DeFi, NFTs and web3 too. So, what’s it gonna take? Here are five wicked good reasons to buy a pass to TC Sessions: Crypto. Speakers par excellence You can’t do much better than our roster of heavy hitters. Just some of the leading voices you’ll hear and learn from: Ava Labs president, John Wu Binance founder and CEO, Changpeng (CZ) Zhao Bitwise Asset Management’s general counsel and chief compliance officer, Katherine Dowling OpenSea co-founder and CEO, Devin Finzer Sequoia Capital partner, Michelle Bailhe Fradin Tezos co-founder, Kathleen Breitman Be sure to explore the full agenda and check out all the interviews and panel discussions — we will even have a live recording of TC’s Chain Reaction podcast. Big breakout sessions Don’t miss your chance to get your Q&A on and get the answers you need to know to help you build and sustain your startup. Here’s just one of the breakouts and a prime example of a topic that generates lots of questions. These folks will have answers. Keeping It Legal: The legal issues associated with crypto and web3 are complex. Tech companies may need to consider balancing the ethos of the blockchain industry with protecting their revenue models and reducing regulatory risk. How are they structuring financings — with equity or tokens or both? How can they protect their IP in an open source world? What contracts do they need with customers and service partners? And what are the best ways to operate within regulatory uncertainty and an anticipated wave of enforcement actions? Leading attorneys from a variety of practice groups at Wilson Sonsini, one of the pathbreaking law firms in the crypto space, will address these and other questions, including questions from the audience. Awesome emerging startups You’ll find more than 15 early-stage startups exhibiting their tech and talent at the show. Whether you’re looking for investment candidates, a new gig, potential customers or collaborators, be sure to get to know these rising stars and what they offer. You can research more about them here, here and here. World-class networking So much of the action across the cryptoverse takes place behind computer screens. This is the perfect time to engage and network in the flesh and eye-to-eye. But hold up: You can also network with folks online and schedule virtual meetings. It’s the very best of both worlds that lets you explore possibilities and mine for opportunity with game-changing founders, investors, developers and policy-makers. A Crypto pitch-off Who doesn’t love a pitch-off? Be in the room when some of the brightest early-stage crypto founders take the stage in front of a live audience. They’ll pitch their tech to a panel of experts, including Galaxy Ventures’ Will Nuelle, Gradient Ventures’ Wen-Wen Lam and Lux Capital’s Grace Isford. Bonus reason: Miami in November. Stay an extra day and bask in the sun and fun that only the Magic City can offer. There you have it. Five spectacular reasons to buy a pass today and join us at TC Sessions: Crypto on November 17. Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: Crypto? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

Startup CEOs sound off on picking cloud providers • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in buildbuddy, EC Cloud and Enterprise Infrastructure, EC Enterprise, EC investor survey, egnyte, Enterprise, monte carlo, StartupsNo Comments

Years ago, there was a price war between public clouds. Back in 2014, to pick one example, Amazon’s AWS cut its prices in response to Google’s recently launched competing service. Since those heady days, the cloud infrastructure market has matured and changed. Sure, AWS is still top dog, with Microsoft and Google working to both snag share from the leader (and one another). But the era of seemingly endless price cuts has been overtaken by a different market narrative: While building on public cloud services is inexpensive to start, it can become far less so over time. That Dropbox made the choice to build out its own infra remains an interesting, if isolated, data point. (ZebethMedia’s coverage from the event back in 2017 is worth your time.) We wanted to get a better vibe for what founders and CEOs are thinking about their public cloud choices, and the strengths and weaknesses thereof. So we got a hold of a few companies that we’re tracking, collecting input from BuildBuddy (early-stage, YC backed, delivering a managed service), Monte Carlo (mid-stage, high-growth, data-focused), and Egnyte (late-stage, profitable, a near-IPO company with a cloud storage and productivity focus) to get a broad view. We surveyed the three founders and included their full replies below. But first, a few observations on their answers. Don’t build alone The number of companies that have built on a public cloud and later went solo is slim. Despite Dropbox managing the transition, and later finding gross-margin leverage in the effort, most companies that build on public clouds stay there. And that appears set to remain the case. The two younger companies we surveyed mentioned the required scale to make such a transition economical. Egnyte’s CEO, the leader of a company that has a history of cloud storage — meaning that surely it has the required scale, right? — mentioned some more modest cases where it may use its own hardware instead of public cloud services. But if Egnyte is still content to use public cloud infra, well, we can presume that nearly every startup is going to stay put as well. Mostly (cloud) monogamous Both BuildyBuddy (GCP) and Monte Carlo (AWS) are single-cloud companies. Egnyte has some workloads on clouds that are not its main, but noted that it is somewhat concentrated. As before, we’re seeing similar answers from each company, size to the side. This is why AWS et al. work with startup accelerators; if you get a company aboard your public cloud when it’s young, you have (nearly) a customer for life.

H-1B worker layoffs, cyber risk quantification, SaaS whiplash • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in cybersecurity, EC roundup, immigration law, Layoffs, Startups, TechCrunch Disrupt 2022, VentureNo Comments

Dear Sophie, I was laid off and I’m on an H-1B. I have enough savings to survive for a while. What should I do if I have been let go from my job? I am on an H-1B, have an approved I-140 and an I-797 that expires in March 2024. If I have to leave the U.S., can my current I-797 be transferred to my next employer? Are there any issues I should be aware of? — Upended & Unemployed The seasons won’t change for another 43 days, but in San Francisco, it already feels like winter. As an offshore weather system brings gusts and downpours, local employers like Twitter, Lyft, Stripe, Brex, Opendoor and Chime are laying off thousands of employees. This week, Meta will reportedly announce the first large-scale staff cuts in its history. Full ZebethMedia+ articles are only available to membersUse discount code TCPLUSROUNDUP to save 20% off a one- or two-year subscription For tech workers who are immigrants, this is an especially fraught time, as their ability to remain in the U.S. is conditional on their employment. Most visa holders have a 60-day grace period after an unexpected layoff, but with thousands of skilled workers hitting the market at once, the clock is ticking. We usually run Silicon Valley-based immigration attorney Sophie Alcorn’s column on Wednesday, but in light of current events, we ran it yesterday (without a paywall). First order of business: if you’ve been impacted, don’t delay. Start looking now for a new position, and tell everyone in your network that you’re open to work. “At a job interview, be direct about your need to transfer your H-1B to a new employer. If the company is not willing to sponsor you, move on,” advises Sophie. “Ideally, you should accept a job offer no more than 45 days into your 60-day grace period unless you have applied for another fallback status because it can take several weeks to prepare and file the H-1B transfer.” Brace yourself: more layoffs are coming. Update your resume, save as much money as you can, and most importantly — don’t panic. Thanks for reading, Walter ThompsonEditorial Manager, ZebethMedia+@yourprotagonist 2023 will be the year of cyber risk quantification Image Credits: Olemedia (opens in a new window) / Getty Images Myriad factors determine a company’s valuation, and cybersecurity is one of them. Public companies that experience a breach tend to see a -3.5% drop in stock value after the news goes public. That’s why cyber-risk quantification (CRQ) “has slowly grown from a nice-to-have to become the foundation for addressing the most critical concerns about a business’ cybersecurity posture,” writes John Chambers, founder and CEO of JC2 Ventures. How ButcherBox bootstrapped to $600M in revenue Mike Salguero at ButcherBox’s dry ice factory Grocery delivery service ButcherBox ran a Kickstarter campaign in 2015 to identify customers who wanted to receive 100% grass-fed beef. Since then, the company “has seen $600 million worth of revenue without taking a penny of external investment,” reports Haje Jan Kamps, who spoke to CEO and co-founder Mike Salguero about how the founding team bootstrapped their D2C startup. “I was meeting meat farmers in parking lots, buying a couple of trash bags full of meat — I’m sure that didn’t seem sketchy at all,” he said. “But it was too much meat for my freezer, so I ended up selling the excess meat to friends or people I was working for.” New data show how SaaS founders have been dealing with whiplash from public markets Image Credits: puruan / Getty Images According to OpenView Venture Partners’ 2022 SaaS benchmarks report, “an overwhelming majority of respondents are slashing spending regardless of cash runway.” In this year’s survey, which covered 660 companies, OpenView operating partner Kyle Poyar and senior director of growth Curt Townshend found that “the rule of 40 is back,” as the need to generate profits has overtaken investors’ obsession with growth. “Achieving 40 each quarter is not required,” they concluded. “But it is required to have a grasp on what caused a drop or spike, and what can be done to get to 40 long term.” How to land investors who fund game-changing companies Image Credits: Kelly Sullivan / Getty Images A SaaS startup can conceivably find product-market fit within a few months of launching, but companies that work with hardware and robotics may wander in the pre-revenue wilderness for years. To learn more about how investors approach risk when it comes to emerging technology, Tim De Chant moderated a panel at ZebethMedia Disrupt with Milo Werner (general partner, The Engine), Gene Berdichevsky (co-founder and CEO, Sila) and Erin Price-Wright (partner, Index Ventures). “Hire people to do the technical stuff,” said Berdichevsky. “Keep an eye on it, but then go learn the other pieces.”

What’s the right NDR target for SaaS startups? • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in EC Newsletter, EC venture capital, Enterprise, openview, SaaS, Startups, The Exchange, VentureNo Comments

Why are software companies valuable? Put another way, why have we spent so many years valuing software companies using revenue multiples, instead of the profit multiples that are more common in other industries? There are several key reasons. First, software companies have very strong gross margins; software is cheap to sell once you’ve written the code. Secondly, and more to the point today, is the fact that modern software companies are set up to sell more of their product to existing customers over time. This is often achieved through selling more seats (individual use licenses) to extant accounts or, in the case of on-demand pricing, more total usage of a service over time. Regardless of the method, what matters is that software companies today tend to see limited gross churn (customers dropping their contracts) and positive net dollar retention (the sale of more product to existing customers over time). The Exchange explores startups, markets and money. Read it every morning on ZebethMedia+ or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday. Net dollar retention (NDR) is, essentially, gross churn from existing customers plus upsells from the same, measured over a set time period. The resulting metric, measured in a percent of prior revenue, helps investors understand just how much built-in growth momentum a company has. The greater net dollar retention that a software company has, the more efficient its growth will be (selling more stuff to already-landed customers is cheaper than securing net-new accounts). NDR matters, and investors, focused on more efficient growth than last year, are likely putting more emphasis on the metric. So, what should startups target when it comes to NDR results? Even more, do those expectations match what startups are actually reporting? And who has better net retention, public software companies or their startup rivals?

Peloton co-founder John Foley is a rug guy now

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in EC venture capital, fundraising, john foley, Peloton, startup, Startups, VentureNo Comments

What Ernesta’s round tells us about today’s VC market John Foley clearly didn’t take (ahem) a brake after leaving Peloton. The former co-founder and CEO of the connected fitness company — who stepped down as CEO in February and left the company altogether in September — is back with a new startup. Ernesta, which aims to launch in spring 2023, will sell custom rugs through a direct-to-consumer strategy. It has already raised a $25 million Series A round from a slate of investors that also backed Peloton, including True Ventures and Lee Fixel, through his current firm Addition. It’s not surprising to see Foley getting back into the startup game by any means — venture capital both embraces failure and loves a good comeback story. Plus, there are plenty of previous examples of this happening involving folks who left companies on much worse terms than Foley did. But this deal is particularly interesting — even when you look past the seeming randomness of it. For one thing, comeback stories in venture don’t generally start in the same calendar year that the previous tale ended in. And Foley’s ability to quickly raise such a sizable round before the company’s launch actually tells us quite a bit about where the market is at right now.

Security automation startup Veriti launches out of stealth with $18.5M • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in AI, cybersecurity, Enterprise, funding, Security, startup, StartupsNo Comments

Veriti, a platform for unifying cybersecurity infrastructure, today emerged from stealth with $18.5 million in funding, a combination of $12 million from Insight Partners and a $6.5 million round led by NFX and Amiti. According to CEO Adi Ikan, the newly announced capital is being put toward scaling Veriti’s business operations and developing its product suite. Veriti’s launch comes as VCs continue to show enthusiasm for cybersecurity startups despite the generally unfavorable funding climate. According to PitchBook data, venture capital investments in the security sector this year eclipsed $13.66 billion — up from $11.47 billion in 2020. And the global cybersecurity market is projected to be worth over $500 billion by 2030. Founded in 2021 by Ikan and Oren Koren — both ex-Check Point executives — Veriti integrates with a company’s existing security stack to evaluate risk posture by analyzing security configurations, logs, sensor telemetries and threat intelligence feeds. The platform taps AI to identify which events might be impacting business uptime and present the root cause, as well as which security policy improvements need to be taken to remediate the impacts. “Enterprise security posture is usually sub-optimal. This is due to many reasons, including tool sprawl, increased complexity, massive amounts of data and limited resources,” Koren told ZebethMedia in an email interview. “This is what inspired us to build Veriti’s platform — to address these complexities and help IT and security stay on top of this challenge.” Koren makes the case that Veriti can augment security teams’ efforts in spotting security gaps, ultimately reducing the time spent on monitoring and maintenance tasks. The growing number of security solutions in organizations can introduce complexity because each solution has its own functions and tools to learn, he argues, while the volume of alerts issued by the solutions end up creating murky visibility into the actual security posture. Koren isn’t exactly an unbiased source. But he’s not the only one who’s observed these troubling trends in enterprise security. One recent survey of over 800 IT professionals found that almost 60% were receiving over 500 cloud security alerts per day, and that the alert fatigue created by the volume caused 55% to miss critical alerts on either a daily or weekly basis. “While affording more expansive security capabilities, the proliferation of security solutions creates room for misconfigurations that can result in inadvertent security gaps and adversely impact the business by blocking legitimate applications and users,” Ikan said via email. “IT and security leadership today have a poor idea of the true utilization of security investments and of the effective security posture of their organizations.” Veriti’s challenge will be demonstrating that its approach is superior to the other security posture-analyzing platforms on the market. Rival vendor Secureframe provides a service that integrates with cloud providers and apps to understand its customers’ security postures. Hunters, another competitor, aims to automate the threat-hunting process by taking in data from networking and security tools to detect stealth attacks. It’s very early days for Veriti — Koren wouldn’t reveal the size of the company’s customer base or current revenue. But he’s betting that Veriti’s tech expertise will help it stand out from the pack. “By leveraging modern techniques like machine learning, focusing on automation, we aim to provide a way for modern teams to maximize security posture while minimizing issues that impact business uptime,” he said. As the idiom goes: time will tell.

Here’s what founders and executives need to focus on • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in Column, downturn, EC Column, EC How To, Mergers and Acquisitions, StartupsNo Comments

Matt Armanino Contributor Matt Armanino serves as the CEO of national consulting and accounting firm Armanino, where he focuses on driving firmwide growth and innovation. Recent economic headlines have been dominated by the declining stock market, rampant inflation and widespread talk of recession. At Armanino, we use the term “VUCA” to describe such broadly adverse market conditions. Standing for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, VUCA illustrates the many challenges currently facing business owners and operators. Times like these can separate well-run companies from those with directional or operational flaws. Forward-looking owners and C-suite executives who provide strong direction are more likely to steer their companies through the storm. Facing a sea of challenges, leaders have clear opportunities to implement critical changes and prepare for better times ahead. As a business owner and CEO, anticipating and managing through VUCA is a constant focus for me. We have helped thousands of companies — ranging from seed-round startups and late-stage unicorns to mature public companies — navigate it by implementing practices that can allow them to survive and thrive. Having helped build a startup and gone under the hood with many unicorns over the past few decades, I’ve seen how some of the best founders and executives position their companies in times of stress to flourish on the other side, whether through a successful IPO, SPAC exit or just stable growth. It might seem counterintuitive, but the ability of AI to assess the quality of client relationships can actually help companies become more “human.” As I look back on what these businesses have done to succeed, my best tips for company leaders encountering VUCA now are to empower their operations, invest in digital transformation and seek M&A opportunities. Empower operations to capitalize on better market conditions in the future Companies are increasingly focused on running their businesses better during adverse market conditions so they can come out stronger when the economic environment improves. In some cases, companies that had been targeting IPOs or funding transactions for 2022 are now postponing until Q1 or Q2 of 2023, if not later. Empowering operations includes understanding and communicating relevant metrics. First, does your team grasp the metrics on which success is based for your company? Second, do your employees understand those numbers and how to impact them? When times are tough, everyone in the organization should understand the most important metrics and how to potentially improve them so they can better recognize what to do and why their roles matter. We’ve also noticed companies increasingly emphasizing the idea of reaching a cash-flow-positive state. In the past, a “revenue at all costs” approach often took precedence. But now it’s more about identifying the best revenue and focusing on how to manage costs to achieve some level of cash-flow positivity or at least a clear trajectory toward it. During lucrative times, companies have historically focused on growing top-line revenue by aggressively adding new accounts. During a downturn, it’s critical to be laser-focused on your most engaged customers and invest in building deeper relationships with less steady clients. Businesses should take a closer look at key accounts to analyze relationship strength and work to bolster these relationships. In fact, many companies are now hiring more account managers instead of salespeople to improve client relations and promote additional services to paying customers. Invest in digital transformation to make your data actionable If becoming cash-flow positive and developing deeper client relationships are important goals, then focusing on technology and digital transformation is vital. Businesses need to assess how they can become more efficient with their infrastructure and leverage more valuable information from their data collection.

Eliyan raises $40M from Intel and Micron to build chiplet interconnects • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 8, 2022Posted in chips, funding, Hardware, Intel, Micron, semiconductor, startup, StartupsNo Comments

Increasingly, as Moore’s law rears its ugly head, computer chip developers are adopting “chiplet” architectures to scale their hardware’s processing power. Chiplets are Lego-like integrated circuit blocks designed to work with other, similar chiplets to form complex, stackable chips that boost performance while maintaining a similar physical footprint. Chiplets offer a number of advantages over conventional designs. But assembly issues — as well as challenges in balancing cost, performance, power consumption and time to market — often plague them in the early phases. Aiming to overcome the hurdles in chiplet creation, Ramin Fajadrad, Syrus Ziai and Patrick Soheili founded Eliyan, a chiplet interconnect startup, in 2021. Eliyan’s technology — dubbed NuLink — connects chiplet components using standard chip packaging, leading to what the company claims are faster-performing and more energy-efficient chips. “The focus is on developing a way to enable a more high-performance, lower-power and lower-latency interconnect for chiplet architectures, which experts agree is the only path to continuing to scale Moore’s law,” Farjadrad told ZebethMedia in an email interview. “We use our technology in standard packaging, thus saving time, cost and development effort compared to more advanced packing that other interconnect schemes require. In addition, our approach has sustainability benefits by reducing material costs and waste in the manufacturing process and lowering energy consumption for high-performance compute chips.” Eliyan’s roots are in a previous startup, Aquantia, that Marvell acquired in 2019. Farjadrad says the technology has been under development since 2017; he co-started Aquantia and served as the startup’s chief engineer for nearly 15 years. Prior to co-founding Eliyan, Farjadrad spent several years at Marvell as CTO and VP of the company’s networking and automotive division. Ziai is a former Qualcomm engineering VP, while Soheili was previously VP of business development at semiconductor firm eSilicon. While Eliyan hasn’t launched its technology commercially yet — it expects the first silicon to hit the market in Q2 2023 — the company claims to have achieved the last step before manufacturing, a tape-out, using semiconductor manufacturer TSMC’s 5 nm process. “Process” in chip lingo refers to an architectural platform; TSMC began mass-producing 5 nm chips in 2020. “Eliyan’s technology enables processors by allowing them to scale in performance and power to be more readily and practically manufacturable,” Farjadrad said. “The world will always need more computing power, and Eliyan is enabling a critical aspect of making sure scaling will happen for any type of high-performance computing application.” The fact that Eliyan’s tech has yet to reach market might give some would-be customers pause. But the startup has notable investors in the chip world behind it, including Intel and Micron, who alongside Cerberus and Celestra contributed to Eliyan’s $40 million Series A tranche that closed today. With the capital, Eliyan plans to continue chasing after a chiplet market that could be worth $50 billion in 2024 — specifically by ramping up testing and implementation. Farjadrad wouldn’t name clients, but said that Eliyan, which currently has a 21-person staff, is in discussions with “big semi companies, hyperscalers and AI processor startups.” “We’re dealing with the challenges and realities of physics in designing and manufacturing advanced chips … [but we’re] in a high-demand market,” Farjadrad said. “Our technology will ultimately lead to faster, more efficient and cheaper high-performance computing to run data centers, cloud computing AI, graphics and more.”