Eliyan, a chiplet interconnect company, is planning to raise a Series C of between USD 30m and USD 100m in Q1. The raise is expected to close either at the end of Q2 or Q3, co-founder Patrick Soheili said.

The amount raised depends on market conditions and the number of projects the firm takes on, Soheili said.

The Santa Clara, California-based company is interested in targeting strategic investors and venture capitalists for the raise, plus existing investors. Cerberus Capital Management is the company’s majority owner; Tiger Global Management is the second-biggest shareholder.

“There’s a big difference between chip companies these days in the amount of money they need to raise to be successful,” Soheili said. Companies are becoming chip developers “because they feel that the hyperscalers are not going to do justice by delivering their chips for the masses, and  they have to kind of do it,” Soheili said, which is a boon for the chiplet business.

“We’re going to raise this next round because it makes things a lot easier for picking and choosing the project,” he said. “The more projects you have, the more people you need.”

The fresh round of capital will be allocated towards expanding the engineering and marketing teams in both the US and Europe. The former is needed to develop chiplets and pieces of IP, which requires more engineering headcount. The latter would help manage the products and put together the documentation for them, he said.

The company has raised USD 107m in funding to date.

In the next six to 12 months, the company could possibly buy a company in the chiplet space that complements its technology, Soheili. He declined to provide financials of the targets Eliyan is seeking, saying it’s “hard to say at this stage.” It is not in any discussions with targets.

The company would finance any future deals with equity, Soheili said.

Whether the company would consider an initial public offering or being acquired “really depends,” CEO and co-founder Ramin Farjadrad said. The goal is to build a company that lasts and not just for acquisition, he said. “And if a great offer comes forward, absolutely, we’ll consider it.”

Soheili added that Eliyan could provide a “lot of value” to firms trying to compete with Nvidia [NASDAQ:NVDA] and companies that are providing chiplets, whether that’s the application specific integrated circuits (ASIC) suppliers or the hyperscalers themselves.

Eliyan declined to disclose revenue. Soheili said it is hoping to break even by the middle of 2026. It has contracts that range from the “high teens of millions to mid-teens of millions –  call it 50 (million) to 75 million in that range per the initial development and progress of the company,” he said. “When it becomes a chiplet-based revenue, the numbers would be a lot larger.”

Eliyan has about a dozen customers, Soheili said.

Broadcom [NASDAQ:AVGO], Nvidia, AMD [NASDAQ:AMD], and Intel [NASDAQ:INTC] who are developing similar tools internally are the company’s competitors, Soheili said.

Founded in 2021 by Farjadrad, Soheili and Syrus Ziai, Eliyan makes chiplet interconnect technology, which enables chips to be utilized more, to meet the needs of high-performance computing applications including desktops and data centers.

The company has about 60 to 70 employees, Soheili said.

Gunderson Dettmer provides legal services. PWC is the company’s auditor.