For Eclipse, the $2.5B Cerebras win is just the start of realizing its physical-world thesis | TechCrunch

"“It was the era of enterprise software and SaaS, and it felt fairly lonely the first couple of years,” Susan said on stage at a recent StrictlyVC event in San Francisco."

"“The firm invested a total of $147 million in Cerebras over time, a bet that generated a 17-fold return at the IPO price of $185 per share, according to Eclipse.”"

"“I think people understand that the real moat in software is gone. You can vibe code pretty much whatever you want,” he said."

"“What you cannot do with 'vibe code' is manufacture wafers, because you need machines and silicon, and they need clean rooms, and a bunch of other things,” Susan said."

Eclipse Ventures began in 2015 with a thesis centered on digitizing the physical world, despite limited enthusiasm in Silicon Valley at the time. The firm’s early investment in Cerebras Systems led to a $6.5 million Series A in 2016 and a total investment of $147 million, resulting in a 17-fold return at the IPO price of $185 per share and a total return of $2.5 billion. The success reflects a belief that 85% of global GDP is tied to physical-world activity. Public markets and founders increasingly favor hardware and software intersections as software moats weaken and enterprises explore model-driven tooling. Physical-world constraints like manufacturing wafers require machines, silicon, and clean rooms, limiting purely software-based substitution.

Read at TechCrunch