When Lior Susan founded Eclipse Ventures in 2015, the company's theme of digitizing the physical world wasn't particularly popular in Silicon Valley.
“It was the era of enterprise software and SaaS, and I felt pretty isolated for the first few years,” Susan said on stage at a recent StrictlyVC event in San Francisco.
More than a decade later, Eclipse is at the center of technology industry activity. The company made a $6.5 million Series A investment in Cerebra Systems in 2016, paving the way for a total gain of $2.5 billion when the semiconductor company goes public this week. Eclipse said it invested a total of $147 million in Cerebra over the long term, a bet that generated a 17x return at its IPO price of $185 per share.
For Susan, the windfall from Cerebras is just the beginning of reaping major benefits from her long-held belief that investing in companies beyond pure software can yield huge returns, as 85% of the world's GDP is tied to the physical world.
Public markets and startup founders also now seem to recognize the value of physical world technology. Susan pointed out that while TSMC and Micron stock prices have recently reached all-time highs, an elite group of founders are keen to launch startups at the intersection of hardware and software.
“I think people are understanding that there are no real moats in software anymore. You can make your code feel pretty much whatever you want,” he said.
Susan echoed the public market sentiment that saw many SaaS stocks fall earlier this year on the idea that companies might use Anthropic's Claude Code and OpenAI's latest models to create their own bespoke software tools.
“What you can't do with Vibecode is wafer manufacturing, because you need machinery and silicon and you need clean rooms and a lot of other things,” Susan said.
Semiconductors aren't the only technology that touches the physical world that is suddenly attracting the attention of investors and founders.
Eclipse's portfolio companies, which span sectors such as robotics, energy and defense, raised nearly $15 billion from outside backers last year, with late-stage momentum reaching $4.5 billion in the first quarter of 2026 alone, Susan said. This investor excitement is in stark contrast to the company's early performance. So in its first eight years, its portfolio companies raised less than $4 billion in total.
Indeed, recent follow-on rounds across Eclipse's portfolio demonstrate a track record that any venture firm would envy. Driven by a series of large late-stage deals this year, the total includes $1.2 billion for Wayve, $650 million for True Anomaly, $270 million for Bedrock Robotics, and $200 million for Oxide Computer. Additionally, Eclipse was a Series A investor in all four companies.
At first glance, investors' enthusiasm for technology in the physical world may seem to be driven purely by AI, whether as an input for infrastructure such as chips or data centers, or by the power of AI to make robotics ultimately viable. But Susan argues that there are other powerful tailwinds driving this momentum.
In addition to technology (AI in this case), capital, customer demand, talent, and policy are critical for this market to thrive. What Susan means is that as investors and engineers move away from SaaS and into fields like robotics, semiconductors, space, and mining, the U.S. government is also encouraging these industries through subsidies and favorable regulations.
“This is the first time since Henry Ford and Carnegie that I believed these five forces were working together in America,” Susan said. “For builders like us, now is the perfect time to build these companies.”
If you buy through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This does not affect editorial independence.