NUVIA Raises $53 Million to Reimagine Silicon Design for the Data Center

Capricorn Investment Group, Dell Technologies Capital, Mayfield, Nepenthe LLC and WRVI Capital Participate in Series A Investment Round

Santa Clara, Calif., Nov. 15, 2019 – NUVIA Inc., a leading-edge silicon design company, today announced the close of its Series A funding round raising $53 million. The funding round was co-led by prominent Silicon Valley investors Capricorn Investment Group, Dell Technologies Capital, Mayfield and WRVI Capital, with additional participation from Nepenthe LLC.

NUVIA was founded in early 2019 with the goal of reimagining silicon design to deliver industry-leading performance and energy efficiency for the data center. The company was founded by John Bruno, Manu Gulati and Gerard Williams III, who have collectively driven system engineering and silicon design for more than 20 chips, with more than 100 patents granted to date. NUVIA’s founders bring a rich silicon design heritage, having held a diverse array of engineering leadership roles at Google, Apple, ARM, Broadcom and AMD.

“The world is creating more data than it can process as we become increasingly dependent on high-speed information access, always-on rich media experiences and ubiquitous connectivity,” said Gerard Williams III, CEO, NUVIA. “A step-function increase in compute performance and power efficiency is needed to feed these growing user needs. The timing couldn’t be better to create a new model for high-performance silicon design with the support of a world-class group of investors.”


“The compute-intensive demands of next-generation platforms are stretching the conventional limitations of the semiconductor industry,” said Dipender Saluja, Managing Partner of Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund. “What’s needed is a new approach to silicon design that provides non-linear increases in performance and energy efficiency. We’re excited to partner with NUVIA on this journey as they realize this promise for the next era of semiconductors and computing.”

Scott Darling, President of Dell Technologies Capital said: “The formation of NUVIA is a prime example of remarkable innovation born in Silicon Valley. The best companies start when founders with outstanding track records of performance come together to identify a big problem and line up the best investment team to help them succeed. As part of that team, we’re focused on providing NUVIA with DTC’s unique value and market leverage.”

“We are witnessing a renaissance of silicon, as with the end of Moore’s Law, new semiconductors are required for a cloud-native, data-dominated, AI-powered IoT world,” said Navin Chaddha, Managing Director of Mayfield. “It is an honor to partner with John, Manu, Gerard and their team as they put silicon back into Silicon Valley.”

About NUVIA Inc.

Headquartered in Santa Clara, NUVIA was founded on the promise of reimagining silicon design for high-performance computing environments. The company is focused on building products that blend the best attributes of compute performance, power efficiency and scalability. For more information, please visit www.nuviainc.com.

About Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund

Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund is a leading provider of venture capital for high-impact technology companies, and an early investor in companies like Tesla, Planet Labs, Innovium, QuantumScape, SpaceX, Joby Aviation, Helion Energy, and Saildrone. The fund has its roots in Capricorn Investment Group, a $5 billion investment firm founded to demonstrate that it is possible to achieve extraordinary investment results by leveraging market forces to accelerate large scale impact while driving sustainable positive change. Technology Impact Fund’s investment process is grounded in comprehensive perspectives on long-term, global trends in technology, energy, transportation, space, healthcare, and agriculture. For more information, visit capricornllc.com.

About Dell Technologies Capital

The Dell Technologies Capital investment team is comprised of company builders with the mission of helping founders and their teams develop innovative technology solutions and bring them to market. They are active investors, sustaining an investment pace of approximately $100 million a year. As the global investment practice for the Dell Technologies family of businesses (Dell, Dell EMC, Pivotal, RSA, SecureWorks, Virtustream and VMware), Dell Technologies Capital offers deep business and technical expertise and unparalleled go-to-market assistance to our portfolio companies. After operating in stealth for five years, the venture practice emerged publicly in 2017. Headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., Dell Technologies Capital currently has offices in Boston, Austin and Herzliya, Israel. For more information visit www.delltechnologies.com/capital.

About Mayfield

Mayfield is a global venture capital firm with a people-first philosophy and $1.8 billion under management. Mayfield invests primarily in early-stage consumer, enterprise and healthIT companies. Since its founding 50 years ago, the firm has invested in more than 500 companies, resulting in 117 IPOs and more than 200 mergers or acquisitions. Some notable investments include Fungible, HashiCorp, Lyft, Marketo, Moat, Poshmark, ServiceMax and SolarCity. For more information, go to www.mayfield.com or follow @MayfieldFund.

About WRVI Capital

WRVI Capital is a leading venture capital firm that invests in exceptional entrepreneurs and disruptive technologies. Through its unique mix of intellectual capital, expertise, and network of relationships, it empowers founding teams and drive continuous and measurable progress for our portfolio companies. WRVI Capital is headquartered in California.