{
  "id": 19869,
  "title": "Cisco-Backed Startup Eliyan Raises $145M at $1B Valuation to Fix AI’s Data Bottleneck",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/07/30/cisco-backed-startup-eliyan-raises-145m-at-1b-valuation-to-fix-ais",
  "topic": "ai",
  "section": "AI",
  "published": "2026-07-30T14:42:57.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Ventureburn",
    "slug": "ventureburn",
    "url": "https://ventureburn.com/cisco-backed-eliyan-raises-145m-at-1b-valuation/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Cisco-backed startup Eliyan has secured $145 million in funding, valuing the company at $1 billion. The venture aims to tackle the substantial data bottlenecks experienced in dense AI clusters, where GPUs typically operate at just 30 to 40% capacity due to data transfer inefficiencies. The company, founded by Ramin Farjadrad, Patrick Soheili, and Syrus Ziai, focuses on enhancing the connections between chips rather than developing the chips themselves.\n\nEliyan's NuLink PHY cores facilitate data movement between dies on the same package and across separately packaged chips, while its NuGear chiplets enable memory expansion and facilitate scaling across racks. Their chiplets achieve comparable bandwidth performance on standard organic substrates, allowing chip designers to boost throughput without necessitating a complete redesign of the physical chip.\n\nNotable investors in Eliyan include Seligman Ventures, led by managing partner Umesh Padval, who also joined the company's board of directors. Other strategic investors include Cisco, which has a dedicated spin-out focused on optics and silicon, and Lumentum, a key player in manufacturing lasers and optical modules for hyperscale data centers. Previous investors include AMD, Arm, Meta, Coherent, Intel Capital, and Samsung Catalyst Fund.\n\nEliyan anticipates delivering its first chiplets later this year and expects to generate hundreds of millions of dollars by 2027. The company believes interconnects present the bottleneck for chiplet performance, and their intellectual property gives them an edge as larger competitors like Nvidia and Intel increasingly focus on addressing the same challenge. The AI race's next stage is not dictated by the fastest single chip but by the capability to transfer data across large clusters without causing overheating or exorbitant power costs – a challenge Eliyan aims to resolve with its $145 million investment.",
  "summary": "Everyone’s watching chip speed. Almost nobody’s watching what happens between the chips and that’s exactly where the industry is losing the most performance. In dense AI clusters, GPUs typically run The post Cisco-Backed Startup Eliyan Raises $145M at $1B Valuation to Fix AI’s Data Bottleneck appeared first on Ventureburn .",
  "key_points": [
    "Eliyan raised $145M at $1B valuation to address AI data bottlenecks",
    "Founded by Ramin Farjadrad, Patrick Soheili, and Syrus Ziai",
    "Investors include Seligman Ventures, Cisco, Lumentum"
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}