Dave Zilberman

HawkEye 360’s Series E financing and strategic acquisition mark an important milestone. HawkEye 360, a Seraphim portfolio company, has closed the acquisition of Innovative Signal Analysis (ISA), adding significant depth in signal processing and engineering and further strengthening a mission-critical, end-to-end platform. This is supported by a $150m Series E preferred equity and debt financing round, providing the capital to integrate ISA and continue scaling with discipline in a demanding dual-use market. More details here: https://lnkd.in/eAHtFfCJ Congratulations to John Serafini and the entire HawkEye 360 team on a strong step forward. John’s latest letter is also well worth a read: https://lnkd.in/e6bU-59W #SeraphimSpace #DualUse #SpaceTech #DefenceTech #NationalSecurity #SignalsIntelligence #RF #SpaceEconomy

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AI infrastructure is hitting a power and bandwidth wall, with interconnects increasingly becoming the bottleneck. As connectivity demands surge, copper alone can’t keep up. Co-packaged optics changes the equation That’s why I’m excited to share that Ayar Labs has closed a $500M Series E, accelerating the path to volume production of co-packaged optics (CPO). A big thank you to our lead investor Neuberger Berman and the outstanding group of financial investors supporting this round — ARK Invest, Insight Partners, Qatar Investment Authority, Sequoia Global Equities, and 1789 Capital — alongside strategic ecosystem partners AMD, Alchip Technologies, MediaTek, and NVIDIA. Beyond the funding itself, this week has been especially energizing on the road meeting with many of our customers and ecosystem partners. The message is clear: the industry is ready for optical I/O at scale. This capital allows us to move faster alongside our customers and partners as they architect the next generation of AI systems. This next phase is focused on execution: • Scaling high-volume production and test capacity • Expanding global operations, including our presence in Hsinchu • Deepening partnerships across AI, hyperscalers, and custom ASICs • Accelerating deployment of our CPO solutions Grateful to our investors, customers, and the incredible Ayar Labs team pushing this vision forward. The future of AI infrastructure will be built with light ! Mark Wade Lisa Dulchinos Vladimir Stojanovic Jesse R. Leiter Matthew Gloss, Esq.

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As AI workloads eat up global computing supply, DRAM prices are surging like never before—creating major challenges for teams trying to plan out their data center spend. One of my portfolio companies, Mext, is addressing the largest cost component in the datacenter: server memory (DRAM). From being on the board of Redis for the last twelve years, I’ve learned a lot about the various aspects of this problem and approaches to solving them. Mext found a breakthrough, using new AI techniques, for dramatically reducing the amount of server-DRAM required to run applications, all while maintaining performance. It intelligently manages the server’s memory, keeping hot pages (i.e., those in use by applications) in fast DRAM and offloading cold pages (i.e., those less used) to a much less expensive memory tier (e.g., NVMe Flash). Key to the approach is ensuring cold memory pages that are about to be accessed by an application are back in DRAM before the application needs them or notices that they were gone. This is done without modifications to the application or the OS – so it can run in the cloud or on-premise. Mext thus allows applications to either run using less DRAM or keep their DRAM footprint but do more with it. They're hosting a webinar along with Fred Weber (former CTO of AMD) on Jan 22nd at 10am pacific time. You can register here: https://lnkd.in/gXe9GCeE

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Excited to see Shabodi partnering with GMS to help accelerate the global Network API ecosystem. Proud to be investors in the team as they continue to unlock the value embedded in mobile networks.

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🚀 Exit Fridays: Qualcomm's $2.4B Alphawave Bet - Building the AI Data Center of Tomorrow The Deal: In June 2025, Qualcomm announced its acquisition of UK-based Alphawave Semi for $2.4 billion in cash, marking a strategic push into AI-powered data centers. Alphawave shareholders will receive 183 pence per share—a stunning 96% premium over the company's March 31 closing price. Why It Matters: This isn't just another chip acquisition—it's Qualcomm's bold move to diversify beyond smartphones into the exploding AI infrastructure market. Alphawave's high-speed wired connectivity and compute technologies perfectly complement Qualcomm's power-efficient Oryon CPU and Hexagon NPU processors. The Strategic Fit: Alphawave specializes in chiplets—critical for enabling rapid data transfer in AI workloads. This gives Qualcomm access to full-stack AI deployments, from training and inference to networking and data storage across cloud and enterprise setups. Key Stats: 🎯 $21.9M in Q1 2025 royalties for Alphawave 🔥 Five new IP design wins in recent quarters 📈 Transaction expected to close Q1 2026 CEO Wisdom: "The combined teams share the goal of building advanced technology solutions and enabling next-level connected computing performance across a wide array of high-growth areas, including data center infrastructure." – Cristiano Amon, Qualcomm CEO Lessons for Startups: Complement, don't compete: Alphawave's connectivity IP filled Qualcomm's data center gaps perfectly Timing matters: The AI infrastructure boom created urgent demand for specialized solutions Premium valuations reward scarcity: 96% premiums reflect how critical these technologies have become The Future: This acquisition positions Qualcomm to compete directly with Broadcom and Marvell in custom silicon while building on its recent move into Nvidia's NVLink ecosystem. As one analyst noted, this deal gives Qualcomm "a running start in a part of the market that's expanding quickly thanks to cloud providers and hyperscalers". Will hardware connectivity become the new moat in AI infrastructure? #ExitFridays #Qualcomm #AIInfrastructure #SemiconductorM&A #DataCenter

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Today Isembard announced a $50m Series A fundraise led by Union Square Ventures, less than a year after Notion Capital led their Seed round. 💥This is a company right at the intersection of AI & supply chain sovereignty & they’re exceeding even our most optimistic expectations. By the end of the year they will have 25 factories across the UK, US, Germany, France & Ukraine. 💥Isembard is rapidly scaling its network of AI-first factories for precision manufacturing at the same time as market demand is accelerating. Macro forces (reshoring, rising defence spend, concentration risk in Asia, and the growth of neo-primes) are structurally increasing demand for fast, local, flexible manufacturing that the current industry is unable to deliver on. 💥The innovation is in the way the company builds and franchises factories as a product with tightly integrated units of machines, software, robotics, & process intelligence that turn design files into certified components with speed & reliability. 💥Their AI software platform, MasonOS, connects all sites into a single operating system, replacing fragmented shops with standardised, high-performance industrial nodes & enabling real-time quoting, predictable delivery, & low defect rates. By owning the full production stack, Isembard delivers premium manufacturing performance with the scalability & flexibility of a software platform. 💥We are at the top of the AI hype cycle and there are understandable concerns about the ROI on the vast sums of money being invested into this new super-cycle. But, the ROI for Isembard is both clear and compelling. They will deliver components 10x faster and at 50% of the cost of current suppliers. They will also build a de-centralised, global network of factories to meet the growing demand for national or regional sovereignty. 💥This is a company with a clear vision to disrupt a massive, fragmented $1.8tn component manufacturing market. Today marks another huge stride towards that vision. And they are only just getting started. We’re thrilled to be on this journey with Alexander Fitzgerald & the team & we’re also excited to welcome Rebecca Kaden & USV into the investor base. Notion Capital Union Square Ventures Alexander Fitzgerald Rebecca Kaden Maximilian Eichler Stephen Millard Britt Mulder

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AI and Tokenization unlocks new business models. At Decasonic, we have been seeking investment opportunities at the intersection of AI x RWA. Our investment thesis: Exponential technologies like AI and Web3 converge to build entirely new markets. These new use cases bring the digital world to the Real World Assets (RWA), enabling programmability, composability and liquidity that are native to digital code. The Dune x RWA.xyz RWA Report 2025 (attached) highlights how tokenized U.S. Treasuries alone have reached $7.3B in market size, an 85% YoY growth just this year. This is just one signal of how quickly tokenization is scaling across treasuries, credit, equities and other assets. We believe AI will accelerate this adoption and unlock entirely new business models. Here are three areas where we see Web3 tokens and AI mutually flourish: 1️⃣ New Business Models for AI Creations, AI Agents and AI Digital Twins AI agents, digital twins, and generative models are producing novel assets daily. Tokenization provides identity, ownership, and monetization rails, allowing creators and enterprises to build sustainable business models around AI native output. 2️⃣ Proof of Work and Proof of Personhood In an age of infinite AI content, trust becomes scarce. Tokenized attestations validate that work was produced by a verified human or an authenticated AI agent. This secures reputation and enables trust driven marketplaces. 3️⃣ Data Provenance for AI Models are only as good as the real and synthetic data they ingest. Tokenization provides a cryptographic ledger for data lineage, ensuring verifiable provenance, aligned incentives, and compliance for enterprises and regulators. The big idea: AI creates exponential output while tokenization ensures that output is verifiable, ownable, and monetizable. Together, they enable an entirely new layer of the global digital economy. The convergence of AI and tokenization is not just infrastructure. It is the foundation for the next generation of business models, from AI native enterprises to institutional grade financial systems.

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Most Operators Still Treat ARR Like a Monolith But not all ARR is created equal. Some ARR is sticky, compounding, and margin-rich. Other ARR is flashy until it vanishes. Modern operators ask: → Where does each dollar live on the margin-retention map? → What’s expanding vs. eroding? → Is our revenue mix actually compounding? The best teams manage ARR like an asset portfolio. Do you?

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My review of Pablos Holman's seriously probing (yet occasionally witty) book, Deep Future, about the core technologies that can transform key industries, in CTech by Calcalist. A must-read for any DeepTech investor or entrepreneur.

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