WRVI Capital has invested in deep tech since the beginning.

Berkeley Lights, a deep tech innovator in digital cell biology, became a market leader this past year.

The world is obviously different than it was a year ago. The way we work and learn, the way we diagnose patients and pursue drug discovery, has been forever changed. At the heart of enabling these changes lies deep tech.

Deep tech companies use new scientific discovery or engineering innovation to create foundational technology disruptions that make what had been impossible, possible. The quickly evolving environment in 2020 rapidly accelerated innovations reliant on these deep tech foundations, causing broadband, hybrid cloud infrastructure, and digital biology to soar in value as the world reacted to a new way of life.

But the number of VC firms that understand the space has significantly shrunk due to shifts investors made decades ago. In the 1990s, venture capital was dominated by hardware, including semiconductors, PCs, servers, mobile phones, etc. The venture firms making these investments had significant domain expertise because the firms themselves were run by people coming from leading hardware companies.

As the first wave of venture capitalists retired, they were replaced by investors who pursued enterprise software, e-commerce, and SaaS companies of all kinds. Their investments were driven by two assumptions. The first is that hardware is capital intensive, and the second is that software with its much higher gross margins was not.

These assumptions were not as dramatic as expected. Hardware, while initially more capital intensive, became an outsourcing game. Products made by contract manufacturers like Flextronics and Foxconn reduced the capital intensity substantially. The same happened with semiconductors as they were outsourced to places like TSMC and other companies. At the same time, rather than being capital light, software turned out to require incredible amounts of money for sales and marketing.

The result? Average VC returns have slid continuously over the years. Venture capital used to outperform Nasdaq by a lot, then a little, and in the last five years its comparative performance has been negative.

At the same time, the buying universe for deep tech companies has exploded with demand coming from companies like Samsung, Intel, Qualcomm, Nvidia, and Broadcom, to name a few. In addition, traditional software and ecommerce companies (Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix, and others) have all jumped into hardware and cloud in a big way.

While many VC firms moved away from deep tech investment over the years, WRVI Capital has been rooted in deep tech since the beginning precisely because it’s the backbone of all technology innovation.

 includes many hardware and hardware-related businesses across industries such as AI/machine learning, next generation data and infrastructure, intelligence of things, and data biology/molecular diagnostics. Take the breathtaking performance of our portfolio companies 

 as examples. They have turned groundbreaking deep tech innovations into market leadership in digital cell biology and semiconductors.

Demand driven by Covid-19 and other dynamics has fueled significant M&A activity for WRVI’s portfolio. It also resulted in the firm's strong performance despite this year’s challenging landscape. As one of the few VC firms successfully investing in deep tech from the beginning, our portfolio companies benefit from our intellectual capital, comprised of extensive business operations experience, technical expertise, and robust technology company relationships.

So, while much of the business world spent 2020 reacting to a barrage of new challenges by tweaking and repackaging existing solutions, WRVI Capital’s focus on deep tech allowed us to look past the noise and instead, spend time imagining the technology solutions the world will need tomorrow.

Deep_tech

Berkeley Lights completed its IPO in 2020 and has established market leadership in digital cell biology.

Why we backed Berkeley Lights?

Digital Cell Biology

BerkeleyLights

Berkeley Lights

Deep Tech Shines Amid Pandemic

As 5G is in the mid-stages of coming to market, companies are racing to create the technology to make it possible. Movandi is far ahead of the pack, in this regard.

“How will the all startups created in 2020 be different than startups built before?”

Movandi-Bet InsetB

Almost 17 years ago to the date, Intel launched 

, its latest mobile processor of that time. It was a seminal moment in the evolution from tethered to wireless connectivity that we in the industry referred to as BC and AC periods — “Before Centrino” and “After Centrino.” Centrino ushered in 10Mbps wireless LAN connectivity for laptops by integrating 

 WiFi. For the first time, people experienced untethered access to data, and the wireless revolution gained speed.

Perhaps even more important than the form factor and battery life of the devices we were creating at Intel was the ensuing and insatiable addiction to wireless bandwidth and mobility that drove a cycle of innovation in devices and wireless capacity increases, and changed us all at work, home and play. However, the inability to have a persistent connection and a seamless handoff while being truly mobile became an urgent issue to be solved. The voracious appetite of video-on-the-go, combined with the inherent constraints in existing networks became the catalysts for consumers to crave more from their cellular networks. We had been given a tiny taste of what was possible in WiFi, and we wanted more. Much, much more!

The journey to today was far from simple. Most of us remember when the concept of doing a Zoom call from the back of an Uber or streaming a baseball game to your family across the world from a packed stadium was simply unthinkable (perhaps in these Covid-19 times that last part is still unthinkable!). But that journey holds many parallels with the journey from 4G to 5G. Increasing our data capabilities across the world is critical. According to Verizon, by 2020, 20 billion devices are expected to connect to the internet, and by 2025 that is expected to grow to over 50 billion devices. All of them will rely on and stress the existing network bandwidth to communicate. It’s not just smartphones, either. Self-driving cars; AR/VR applications; IoT systems; and remote healthcare providers using telemedicine for the post-COVID era will all vie for the same bandwidth pie.

, was made through this lens. As 5G is in the mid-stages of coming to market, companies are racing to create the technology to make it possible. 

 is far ahead of the pack, in this regard.

 (a Co Founder of WRVI Capital along with 

 and myself) — with his uncanny ability to smell billion-dollar business opportunities and identify top-tier talent — decided to provide seed funding to 

, the true pioneers in this field, it was a clear indication that we were looking at the formation of another great American company. The two founders hold more than 1,000 patents, and are technologists and entrepreneurs in their hearts and souls. After building and successfully exiting their prior company Innovent to Broadcom, they were responsible for building and growing Broadcom’s wireless business to revenues of over $3B.

This was essentially the motivation for WRVI Capital to bet on Movandi — a company with unparalleled talent, a huge business potential, and targeting an industry at a cusp of a transition. Perhaps more importantly, it is a company that has the promise to take the crown of 5G leadership from the Chinese, the Finns and the Swedes.

To truly understand the power of Movandi’s technology, it helps to look back at the evolution of our current wireless technologies.

When Intel drove the pioneering work in WiFi, it did so through adoption of Smart Antenna technologies such as MiMo, Beam Forming, etc., which in turn drove WiFi to great success through multiple revisions to the original and modest 802.11b standard. Intel, already a leader in WiFi, began to search for a mobile internet technology, or as they called it, “WiFi-on-steroids.” In 2003, Intel acquired Iospan Wireless’s IP, a wireless technology company founded by Dr. Arogyaswami Paulraj (currently Venture Partner of WRVI Capital and Emeritus Professor, Stanford University). Iospan had pioneered a new physical layer technology called MIMO-OFDM to build a cellular-like broadband wireless system for fixed/nomadic applications.

Iospan’s technology became the foundation for Intel’s foray into fully mobile internet access that they called WiMAX. WiMAX was standardized by the IEEE 802.16 committee and strongly promoted by Intel as a 4G mobile internet solution with 50 Mbps-plus data rates and seamless mobility. Intel also worked with many national administrations to allocate wide bandwidth spectrum in 2.3 and 2.5 GHz, above the frequency bands used in cellular. It also invested in a new crop of data-only mobile service providers to create a growing ecosystem for mobile data networks. At this point, the existing mobile voice networks were still transitioning from 2G to 3G technology with the standard developed by the 3GPP consortium. The initial success of WIMAX convinced the 3GPP community that mobile internet was a huge market and that MIMO-OFDM was the right technology. This led, in 2008, to the 3GPP’s 4G LTE standard essentially adopting WiMAX’s technology. The 3GPP LTE, in addition, provided many compatibility features to the existing 2G and 3G networks. The incumbent mobile voice operators clearly found LTE significantly better aligned with their spectrum and infrastructure investments and tilted sharply away from WiMAX.

Meanwhile 4G LTE ushered in the true mobile broadband era that we live in, allowing us to enjoy literally hundreds of services from conference calls to Instagram and cab hailing. LTE has now reached 4.5 Billion people worldwide and is likely to be in service for another decade.

5G is the next generation of mobile communications technology standardized by 3GPP. 5G’s services go well beyond those of 4G which primarily supported connectivity to personal devices. 5G will connect a myriad of new devices including machines, sensors, actuators, self-driving cars, robots and drones, to support a much larger range of applications.

5G also broke new ground in spectrum bands. Current wireless networks operate below 2.6 GHz and have, on the average across countries, a total of about 400 MHz of available spectrum. The increasing demand for high speed and massive device connectivity will clearly need much more spectrum. The 5G spectrum includes the low band and mid band spectrum of the 1G through 4G frequencies as well as the new high-band spectrum, also known as millimetric wavelength (mmWave). The additional spectrum added totals over 4 GHz, multiplying spectrum availability for mobile services by 10x.

As my colleague Dr. Paulraj pointed out recently, it has been many decades since an American company led in wireless technology. Movandi has constructed an incredible moat around their business with IP assets, a world class team and operator relationships, and is well placed to seize global leadership away from the Chinese, the Finns and the Swedes, becoming the defining company in the 5G era.

Customers old enough to remember the early days of WiFi should hold on to their seats now as they watch the rise of 5G. If 2003 brought the ‘old’ AC (After-Centrino) world, we may be entering a ‘new’ AC (After-Covid) world where innovative companies like Movandi lead the way!

Movandi Bet 2

Movandi develops network technology designed to expand wireless communication and connectivity across the globe. It makes components for use with the millimeter wave system of extremely high frequency radio signals that is used in high-speed wireless broadband like 5G.

Why we backed Movandi?

MR_P_Movandi_Med

Movandi's mmwave technologies are poised to be the backbone of leading 5G networks globally. 

5G Wireless Technologies

Movandi

The Bet on Movandi to Change mmWave 5G Networks

WRVICapitalAddsThreeNewTeamMembers

WRVI Capital Adds Three New Team Members

nuvia

Qualcomm to Acquire NUVIA

Movandi-SeriesC

Movandi Announces $27 Million Series C to Accelerate 5G Network Deployments

B2B Retail Tech

B2B retail tech startup Arzooo raises $7.5M in Series A led by US-based WRVI Capital

DataChat Inc

DataChat Closes $4 Million Seed Round to Accelerate the Democratization of Data Analytics

News & Insights - Page

SambaNova is a full-stack AI platform company building advanced integrated semiconductor and software platforms to run AI applications from the datacenter to the edge. Its platform bridges the gap between the demands of ML applications and the capabilities of existing processing platforms.

Why we backed SambaNova Systems?

SambaNovaSystems

SambaNova Systems

CEO of SambaNova explains the firm’s approach to artificial intelligence

SambaNova Systems raises $676M Series D

Movandi Wins Embedded Computing Design's "Best in Show" in the Wired and Wireless Communications Category

Katana Graph develops performance graph databases. The company's vision is to unify graph computing with querying, analytics, and pattern mining on the same graph substrate exploiting disruptive technologies in computing and storage. The platform targets scale-out, performance and programmability.

Display details in company details page

KatanaGraph

Katana Graph

Katana Graph raises $28.5 million to handle unstructured data at scale

Platform9 is the leading Managed Kubernetes provider for private, edge, and hybrid clouds. With a mission to enable freedom in cloud computing, the company delivers cloud-native technologies with SaaS simplicity that are easy to operate and scale, while supporting broad cloud capabilities that run on any infrastructure.

Platform9

Platform9 is the leading Managed Kubernetes cloud provider.

Platform9 Raises Additional Series-D Funding Led by WRVI Capital

Recogni was incorporated in 2017 to help auto manufacturers reach Level 2+ vehicle autonomy. Recogni's Vision Cognition Module (VCM), based on a custom ASIC, is capable of running deep-learning networks with amazing efficiency. This purpose-built solution can enable a car to detect small objects at long distances while consuming minimal battery power.

Recogni

Recogni raises $48.9 million for AI-powered perception chips

BOOM

Boom Supersonic Begins 2021 with Addition of Senior Executives and New Board Members

This impressive group adds to the firm’s already deep bench of technical and operational expertise. 

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WRVI Capital is pleased to welcome two new partners and a senior advisor to the firm. This impressive group adds to the firm’s already deep bench of technical and operational expertise.

Terry’s 30-year career in the semiconductor industry spans research and development in materials, memory and processing devices, sensors, algorithms, as well as extensive experience bringing these technologies to international mass production. Terry received his Ph.D. in Chemical Physics from UC Santa Barbara and then began his career in research and development at Micron Technology. He was VP of R&D at Micron Imaging for the rise of CMOS imager technology, delivering the sensor to the Motorola Razr and first iPhone. Terry was a key part of the executive team that managed the spin-out of Micron Imaging to become Aptina Imaging. He was recruited by Apple to create a sensor technology development team and was hired as its Senior Director of Sensor Technology, reporting to the SVP of Engineering. At Apple, Terry’s team was involved in all product lines and all sensing modalities; Terry was directly responsible for many technologies used in current Apple products. Terry has 175 patents and about 160 applications, and has published and presented widely over his career.

Sarah will be advancing the firm’s efforts to support female and minority entrepreneurs. In addition to her work at WRVI, she is also a General Partner at Lucas Venture Group (LVG), a VC whose portfolio spans cybersecurity, e-commerce, networking, software analytics and transformative medical device companies. Prior to LVG, Sarah co-founded Beyond Type 1, a nonprofit organization uniting the diabetes community through platforms, programs, resources, and grants. By leveraging the power of social media, design and technology, Beyond Type 1 grew to a powerhouse global organization under Sarah’s leadership as CEO from 2015-2018. For over a decade, Sarah was one of the Bay Area's most sought after event designers, co-founding SarahSofia in 2005 and Sarah Lucas Designs in 2010. A passionate philanthropist, she has raised over $15 million for charities in the past 15 years and has served on the boards of several Bay Area and national organizations focused on youth, health, leadership and education. She has a BA in Communications from Santa Clara University.

Ajay Shah has served as Director and Chairman of the Board of SMART Global Holdings, Inc. since 2011 and became Executive Chairman on August 31, 2020. He was previously the Co-CEO starting in March 2018 and then President and Chief Executive Officer of SMART Global Holdings in June 2018 until August 2020. Ajay is also a Managing Partner at global investment firm Silver Lake, and is responsible for the firm’s middle market strategy, Silver Lake Sumeru. Since 2014, Mr. Shah has also served as a Senior Operating Partner of Sumeru Equity Partners, a middle-market private equity firm. Previously, he founded Shah Capital Partners, a private equity firm. Ajay co-founded SMART Modular in 1988 and served as Chairman of the board of directors and Chief Executive Officer through SMART Modular’s initial public offering in 1995 and until 1999, when it was acquired by Solectron. He currently serves on the boards of a number of private technology companies including Healthgrades and Vast Data, and previously served on the boards of Magellan Navigation, Inc., AVI-SPL, Inc., CMAC MicroTechnology, and Flex, to name a few. He is currently a senior fellow of the American Leadership Forum, serves on the boards of National Audubon Society and The Indian School of Business, India and is a Trustee of the American India Foundation. Mr. Shah has a B.S. in Engineering from the University of Baroda, India and an M.S. degree in Engineering Management from Stanford University.

NuVia is a semiconductor company that is developing next-generation server CPU cores and corresponding processors to deliver industry best-in-class performance across performance, energy efficiency, scaling, cost of ownership, and integration. The company is leveraging the learnings of mobile technology and process advancements in the server space to develop its products.

Nuvia

Server chips for cloud/datacenter applications

Cloudleaf is a supply chain and real-time data acquisition company with a sensor platform to deliver scalable, real-time actionable intelligence for assets (in-motion). Cloudleaf's Sensor Fabric is composed of self-provisioning location, load and time aware sensors and gateways, connected for cloud-based event processing and analytics.

Cloudleaf

COVID vaccine is a bonanza for digital supply chain tracking industry

Boom_News

Boom is an aviation company developing a Mach 2+ supersonic commercial aircraft - the Overture. This aircraft will reduce flight times for long-haul flights by up to 2x, dramatically altering the cost-benefit of long-distance air travel. 

Boom

Mach 2+ 55-passenger supersonic transport aircraft

WRVI leads investment in supersonic jet startup Boom Technology

WRVI leads investment in supersonic jet

Adapdix was founded in 2014 with the vision to build a first of its kind edge-optimized data management platform to improve service performance through operationalizing AI/ML. Adapdix' EdgeOps has become the first low-latency platform deployed at large scale.

adapdix

Adapdix

Real-time monitoring & predictive analytics for precision manufacturing

Adapdix secures $8M Series A funding to accelerate growth of AI-powered automation and control software

Movandi co-founder and co-CEO joins CNBC’s Disruptor 50 Summit

Fungible wins Best of Show Award at Flash Memory Summit 2020

fungible-news

Fungible is a hardware+software company creating technologies to address data-centric infrastructure challenges brought by the shift to disaggregated storage. Fungible's DPU enables disaggregated storage architecture and mitigates the limitations of direct-attached storage with modern computer workloads.

Fungible

Data Storage SoCs enabling disaggregated storage

Arzooo is India’s fastest growing digital B2B platform targeting the $25B+ (high touch, low market penetration, offline-assisted sale) consumer durables industry which, currently, is primarily conducted through 500,000+ offline stores. By aggregating dispersed and unorganized retailer demand, Arzooo drives efficiencies when it comes to purchasing, logistics and supply chain.

Arzooo

B2B commerce platform, powering Retail Stores with Technology

DataChat is an AI/ML-led data analytics platform that enables enteprise users to perform analytics tasks and derive meaningful insights from data on the fly in natural language. DataChat's users can naturally express a sequence of complex analysis tasks in natural language and conduct sophisticated analysis at the speed of human thought.

DataChat

SambaNova driving a multi-decade shift in computing

AI chipmaker SambaNova nearly triples valuation to $2.5B

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 21, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bossa Nova, the leading data service provider for global retailers, announced today that Stuart Pann, former Chief Supply Chain Officer at HP Inc., has been appointed chief executive officer, effective immediately. He replaces Bruce McWilliams, who will remain in the company as chief operating officer.

Bossa Nova Robotics is developing autonomous robots to provide and analyze real-time on-shelf inventory data for the global retail industry, allowing large-scale stores 24hour access to the data required to accuratley manage product availability, stock levels and reordering.

COMPANY NEWS

BossaNovaRobotics

Bossa Nova Robotics

Bossa Nova Appoints Stuart Pann as CEO

John Chambers, Former Executive Chairman and CEO of Cisco Systems, Joins Cloudleaf as Strategic Advisor, Investor, and Mentor

Financing round brings five new investors to Atonarp, including Japan Post Investment Corporation and SBI Investment Co., Ltd.

Atonarp is a scientific instrumentation company developing imaging platforms for molecular analysis, revolutionizing how data is sensed, collected, processed and interpreted at the molecular level. Its products have far-reaching applications in pharma, healthcare, oil and gas, and semi-manufacturing.

Why we backed Atonarp?

Atonarp

Atonarp is at the forefront of non-invasive healthcare diagnostics and molecular imaging.

Life Sciences Instrumentation

Atonarp Inc. Announces $33 Million Series C Funding Round Completion

Cloudleaf Announces $26 Million Series B Funding

Fungible raises 200 million led by softbank vision fund to help companies handle increasingly massive amounts of data

Cloudleaf Adds Supply Chain Expert Bill Read to Advisory Ranks

Innovium is a semiconductor company driving efficient resource sharing and freeing data flow in hyperscale networks. The team is proven in delivering market-leading products bringing billions in revenues. Innovium's Telanyx Ethernet Switch Silicon brings industry leading analytics, efficiency and programmability. 

Why we backed Innovium?

Innovium is a leading provider of high performance, innovative switching silicon solutions and its products have been selected and validated by market-leaders.

High performance switch silicon

Innovium

Innovium Raises $77M in Series D

ProteanTecs is revolutionizing electronics reliability by tracking health and performance from within. ProteanTecs has developed a cloud-based platform, which combines data created in chip-embedded agents, with machine learning, to predict faults before they become failures.

ProteanTecs

Cloud based platform that monitors ICs biometrics

Electronics Health Company ProteanTecs Emerges From Stealth With a $35 Million Investment

Clairvolex is an IP asset management (IPAM) and analytics company, partnering with patent owners to visualize, aggregate and manage their patent portfolios to generate lateral licensing revenues. Their platform serves sectors including enterprise software, digital electronics, semiconductors, and telecom.

Clairvolex

Clairvolex launches LEAP - a Next generation IP intelligence platform

LightBits builds hardware and software addressing the need for disaggregation in cloud-scale/hyperscale data centers. Their alternative solutions for disaggregation eliminate the need to change network infrastructure or affect data center clients. Lightbits' innovative NVMe/TCP solution provides up to 50% reduction in tail latency.

LightbitsLabs

Lightbits Labs

Lightbits Labs raises $50 million for software-defined ‘disaggregated’ server technology

Annapurna is a fabless semiconductor company serving the high performance Embedded and Data Center/cloud markets with a Platform-on-Chip approach. Annapurna optimizes cloud infrastructure performance and cost by moving the hypervisor and networking stack to a purpose-built hardware accelerator (ASIC).

Annapurna Labs enabled the launch of blazing fast AWS virtual machines by allowing the Intel Xen hypervisor to be be replaced with a highly optimized KVM hypervisor tightly coupled with Annapurna's ASICs.

ASICs for Virtualization

AnnapurnaLabs

Annapurna Labs

How An Acquisition Made By Amazon In 2016 Became Company's Secret Sauce

Altair Semiconductor develops high performance, single-mode LTE chipsets, with a range of reference hardware products, baseband processors, and RF transceivers. This portfolio covers broad cellular 4G market needs, from supercharged video-centric applications to ultra-low power, low cost IoT, and M2M.

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Altair’s portfolio covers the complete spectrum of cellular 4G market needs, from supercharged video-centric applications all the way to ultra-low power, low cost IoT and M2M.

Single-Mode LTE Chipsets

AltairSemiconductor

Altair Semiconductor

 Altair Semiconductor to present mobile IoT products at MWC

New Berkeley Lights Workflow Speeds Up Drug Discovery

Lightbits Labs Celebrates NVM Express® Ratification of NVMe™/TCP Transport Standard

Cloudleaf to offer digital supply chain services in MENA region

Altair Semiconductor and JIG-SAW Partner on LTE-Enabled Sensors for IIoT

Berkeley Lights Nets $95 Million

CNEX is a semiconductor company developing revolutionary NVMe and Open-Channel SSD controller ASICs that deliver high-performing, low and predictable latency, scalability, and flexibility for software-defined-storage. The company has partnered with leading solid-state storage manufacturers, and data center and systems customers. CNEX SSD controllers deliver high-performance with low and predictable latency, and provide flexibility for software-defined-storage with host-based FTL, and Ethernet I/O for storage fabric scalability.

CNEXLabs

CNEX LABS

NVMe and Open-Channel SSD controller ASICs

Dell, Microsoft Back CNEX Lab’s $23M Series D Round

HERE, Altair Semiconductor partner on IoT tracking

Mojo Networks develops unified, cloud managed WiFi access point products offering robust access, security and engagement capabilities for enterprises, with focus on the SME and education markets. Mojo also sells WIPS (wifi security) products to government and enterprise customers. 

MojoNetworks

Mojo Networks

Arista To Acquire Mojo Networks for Cloud-based WiFi Networking

Catalent brings in Berkeley Lights to optimise cell lines

Aquantia Corp. develops integrated, high-speed communication circuits for Ethernet connectivity, including products for cloud data centers, client connectivity and carrier access. Aquantia serves integrated circuit suppliers and original equipment/design manufacturers through worldwide direct sales. 

Aquantia

VWGoA, Aquantia, Bosch, Continental and NVIDIA form NAV alliance - Automotive Business Review

Aquantia to Showcase Flexible 10GbE Multi-Gig Switch Design for Connected Consumers at Computex

Could this be the year for Multi-Gig PCs? Aquantia says yes

Aquantia launches USB multi-gig ethernet for laptop accessories

Berkeley Lights and TPG Biologics Enter into a Strategic Collaboration for Cell Line Development - News Press Release | PharmiWeb.com

Localize.city is a real estate marketplace designed for everyone. Their AI-based “Insight Engine” analyzes thousands of datasets, uncovering critical information about every home in the market: the impact of future construction, pricing guidance, the amount of sunlight a home receives, and more.