糖心视频

For the semiconductor space, these are not looking like the best of times.

stock plummeted to its lowest point in over five years Friday, following a disappointing earnings forecast predicated on slowing PC demand and sinking profit margins. The news follows several downward-trending quarters for big U.S. chipmakers, with and also well below last year鈥檚 peaks.

Still, it鈥檚 not the worst of times either. Even with the markdowns, big chipmakers still rank high among the most valuable American companies, with the leader, Nvidia, in the No. 7 slot. As for semiconductor startups, venture funding may be down in recent months but we鈥檙e still seeing big deals getting done.

In an effort to see where the money is going, we used Crunchbase data to put together a list of top funding recipients. The curated list below includes 17 semiconductor startups that have collectively pulled in more than $1.1 billion since last year.

Among recent funding rounds, the standout deal is , a Silicon Valley-based developer of system-aware semiconductor products, boards and services. The 6-year-old company raised a $150 million Series D round in November, led by at a valuation of $3.2 billion.

A much newer company, 2-year-old , also scored a sizable funding. The Santa Clara, California-based startup, which manufactures semiconductor interconnects to accelerate -based systems, pulled in $40 million in a November Series A.

Early-stage action

In the past few weeks, the space has also seen some seed and smaller early-stage action. Most recently, , a 2-year-old, Los Gatos, California-based startup described as 鈥渁n AI-enabled company,鈥� picked up $15 million in a January Series A financing. And New York-based , a photonic chip provider, landed $10 million in December.

Current market conditions in the semiconductor space, meanwhile, look rather different than they did 聽a year ago, when headlines about semiconductor supply chain shortages were a regular feature of the news cycle. Global venture funding to companies tied to the semiconductor industry hit a record $6.4 billion in 2021, per Crunchbase data.

Exit activity, however, has slowed since those bubblier times. The paucity of public offerings has put a damper on pre-IPO financings. The collapse of Nvidia鈥檚 planned $44 billion acquisition of last year also put an end to what would have been the largest M&A deal in semiconductor history.

For semiconductor startups, however, there鈥檚 certainly a case to be made. The future looks bright, as humanity鈥檚 ongoing addiction to ever-smaller and more powerful devices ensures any technology that ups performance and saves power ought to find a welcome market.

Illustration: Dom Guzman