When Lior Susan began Eclipse tasks In 2015, the corporate’s thesis of digitizing the bodily world wasn’t notably in style in Silicon Valley.
“It was the period of enterprise software program and SaaS, and I felt pretty lonely for the primary couple of years,” Susan stated on stage at a current StrictlyVC occasion in San Francisco.
Greater than a decade later, Eclipse finds itself on the middle of occasions on this planet of expertise. The corporate’s $6.5 million Sequence A funding in Cerebras Methods in 2016 paved the way in which for a complete return of $2.5 billion when the semiconductor firm went public this week. The corporate has invested a complete of $147 million in Cerebras over time, a guess that has returned 17 occasions in Subscription worth is $185 per share, based on Eclipse.
For Susan, the windfall from Cerebras is only the start of reaping massive rewards from a long-held perception that as a result of 85% of worldwide GDP is tied to the bodily world, investing in corporations exterior of pure software program may be extremely worthwhile.
And public markets and startup founders appear to acknowledge the worth of bodily world expertise now, too. Susan famous that shares of TSMC and Micron just lately reached all-time highs, whereas a rising group of elite founders are keen to construct startups on the intersection of {hardware} and software program.
“I feel individuals perceive that the actual trenches in software program are over,” he stated. “You should utilize programming just about no matter you need.”
Susan echoed the overall market sentiment that earlier this yr despatched many SaaS shares tumbling over the assumption that corporations may use Anthropic’s Claude Code or the newest OpenAI fashions to create their very own customized software program instruments as an alternative.
“What you possibly can’t do with Biocode is make chips, since you want machines and silicon, and so they want clear rooms, and a bunch of different issues,” Susan stated.
In relation to expertise that touches the bodily world, it is not simply semiconductors which might be all of the sudden attracting the eye of buyers and founders.
Eclipse’s portfolio corporations, which cowl sectors equivalent to robotics, power and protection, raised practically $15 billion from exterior backers final yr, and that late-stage momentum reached $4.5 billion within the first quarter of 2026 alone, Susan stated. This investor enthusiasm stands in stark distinction to the corporate’s early monitor document: In its first eight years, its portfolio corporations raised lower than $4 billion in complete.
In truth, current follow-on rounds throughout the Eclipse portfolio present a monitor document that any funding agency would envy. Pushed by a sequence of big late-stage offers this yr, this tally contains $1.2 billion for Wayve$650 million to True Anomaly, $270 million to Bedrock Robotics, and $200 million to Oxide Laptop. Moreover, Eclipse was the Sequence A investor for all 4 corporations.
At first look, it might sound that buyers’ enthusiasm for physical-world expertise is pushed solely by AI, whether or not as an enter to infrastructure like chips and knowledge facilities, or by means of the ability of AI to ultimately make robots viable. Nevertheless, Susan sees different sturdy tailwinds driving this momentum.
Past expertise – on this case, synthetic intelligence – what’s vital for this market to thrive are capital, buyer demand, expertise, and coverage. Susan implies that together with buyers and engineers transferring away from SaaS and into sectors like robotics, semiconductors, aerospace, and mining, the US authorities can also be encouraging these industries by means of favorable subsidies and rules.
“That is the primary time I’ve ever believed in America,” Susan stated. “Since Henry Ford and Carnegie, these 5 powers have aligned.” “For development corporations like us, that is one of the best time to construct these corporations.”
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