When Lior Susan began Eclipse Ventures in 2015, the agency’s thesis of digitizing the bodily world wasn’t notably fashionable in Silicon Valley.
“It was the period of enterprise software program and SaaS, and it felt pretty lonely 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 the tech world’s motion. The agency’s $6.5 million Collection A funding in Cerebras Methods in 2016 paved the best way for a complete return of $2.5 billion when the semiconductor firm went public this week. The agency invested a complete of $147 million in Cerebras over time, a guess that generated a 17-fold return on the IPO price of $185 per share, based on Eclipse.
For Susan, the windfall from Cerebras is just the start of reaping massive rewards from a longstanding perception that as a result of 85% of worldwide GDP is tied to the bodily world, investing in firms past pure software program may very well be immensely profitable.
Public markets and startup founders appear to be recognizing the worth of physical-world tech now, too. Susan famous that shares of TSMC and Micron just lately hit all-time highs, whereas a rising cohort of elite founders are keen to construct startups on the intersection of {hardware} and software program.
“I feel individuals perceive that the actual moat in software program is gone. You may vibe code just about no matter you need,” he stated.
Susan echoed public market sentiment that earlier this yr despatched many SaaS shares tumbling on the assumption that enterprises might use Anthropic’s Claude Code or OpenAI’s newest fashions to create their very own bespoke software program instruments as a substitute.
“What you can’t do with ‘vibe code’ is manufacture wafers, since you want machines and silicon, and so they want clear rooms, and a bunch of different issues,” Susan stated.
On the subject of the tech that touches the bodily world, it’s not simply semiconductors which might be abruptly catching the eye of buyers and founders.
Eclipse’s portfolio firms spanning sectors like robotics, vitality and protection, raised almost $15 billion from exterior backers final yr, and that late-stage momentum reached $4.5 billion in Q1 2026 alone, Susan stated. That investor pleasure stands in stark distinction to the agency’s early monitor file: in its first eight years, its portfolio firms raised lower than $4 billion in complete.
Certainly, the current follow-on rounds throughout Eclipse’s portfolio present a monitor file that any enterprise agency would envy. Pushed by a string of large late-stage offers this yr, the haul consists of $1.2 billion for Wayve$650 million for True Anomaly, $270 million for Bedrock Robotics, and $200 million for Oxide Laptop. What’s extra, Eclipse was the Collection A investor for all 4 firms.
At first look, it might appear that investor enthusiasm for physical-world tech is pushed purely by AI, whether or not as an infrastructure enter like chips and knowledge facilities, or by way of AI’s energy to lastly make robotics viable. Nevertheless, Susan argues that there are different highly effective tailwinds driving the momentum.
In addition to expertise — on this case, AI — what’s necessary for this market to thrive is capital, buyer demand, expertise, and coverage. Susan implies that together with buyers and engineers transferring away from SaaS to sectors like robotics, semiconductors, area, and mining, the U.S. authorities can also be encouraging these industries by way of subsidies and favorable regulation.
“That is the primary time I imagine in America ever, from Henry Ford and Carnegie, these 5 forces are aligned,” Susan stated. “For builders like us, that is the perfect time to construct these firms.”
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