For Eclipse, the $2.5 billion Cerebras win is just the beginning of realizing its physical world thesis.

When Lior Susan started 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 the first few years were quite lonely,” Susan said on stage at a recent StrictlyVC event in San Francisco.

More than a decade later, Eclipse is at the center of activity in the tech world. The company’s $6.5 million Series A investment in Cerebras Systems in 2016 paved the way for a total of $2.5 billion in revenue when the semiconductor company went public this week. According to Eclipse, the company invested a total of $147 million in Cerebras over time, a bet that generated a 17x return at its IPO price of $185 per share.

For Susan, Cerebras’ windfall is just the beginning of a big reward that stems from her long-held belief that investing in companies other than pure software can be incredibly profitable, since 85% of global GDP is tied to the physical world.

Now public markets and even startup founders seem to be recognizing the value of real-world technology. Susan noted that shares of TSMC and Micron have recently hit record highs, and more and more elite founders are eager to build startups at the intersection of hardware and software.

“I think people understand that the real moat of software is gone: You can tone your code however you want,” he said.

Susan echoed the popular market sentiment that many SaaS stocks tumbled earlier this year due to the belief that companies could use Anthropic’s Claude Code or the latest models from OpenAI to create their own custom software tools.

“You can’t manufacture wafers with ‘vibe code’ because you need machines, silicon, clean rooms, etc.,” Susan said.

When it comes to technologies that impact the physical world, semiconductors aren’t the only thing suddenly attracting the attention of investors and startups.

Eclipse’s portfolio companies across sectors such as robotics, energy and defense raised nearly $15 billion from external backers last year, with late-stage momentum reaching $4.5 billion in the first quarter of 2026 alone, Susan said. This investor excitement stands in stark contrast to the company’s early performance. In the first eight years, portfolio companies raised a total of less than $4 billion.

In fact, recent follow-on rounds across the Eclipse portfolio demonstrate a track record that any venture firm would envy. It’s driven by a series of large later deals this year, including $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, it may seem that investor enthusiasm for physical world technologies is driven purely by AI, whether through infrastructure inputs like chips or data centers, or through the power of AI to finally make robotics viable. But Susan argues there are other powerful tailwinds fueling this momentum.

Besides technology (in this case AI), what is important for this market to thrive are capital, customer demand, talent and policy. Susan says this means that with investors and engineers moving from SaaS to 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 I believe the five forces of Henry Ford and Carnegie are aligned,” Susan said. “For builders like us, now is the best time to set up a company.”