Eclipse Ventures closed $1.3 billion in new capital on April 7, split across a $591 million early-stage incubation fund and a larger growth fund, according to TechCrunch. The Palo Alto firm, founded by Lior Susan in 2015, is betting that the next wave of AI value creation happens in the physical world: factory floors, construction sites, autonomous vehicles, defense operations, and energy infrastructure.
“This is the first time where stuff is going to move from our screens into the physical world,” Eclipse partner Jiten Behl told TechCrunch. “We’re going to see advanced levels of intelligence, along with actual actions, in terms of solving problems in the real, physical world.”
The raise is Eclipse’s largest to date, surpassing the $1.23 billion raised in 2023 and bringing total assets under management to approximately $10 billion, per TechFundingNews.
Portfolio and Strategy
Eclipse’s existing investments map the physical AI thesis: Wayve (autonomous vehicle software), Redwood Materials (battery recycling), Arc (electric boats for commercial and defense), Bedrock Robotics (self-driving construction vehicles), Mind Robotics (industrial robotics), and Cerebras (AI chips).
The firm does not just back companies. Eclipse incubates them from scratch and has already started building new ventures from the latest fund, according to Behl. The firm also acts as an operational partner, sharing manufacturing expertise, customer networks, and resources across its portfolio to accelerate startups from prototype to production.
Behl described the strategy as building an ecosystem where portfolio companies become partners: “Scale is so important, and if you can put it together in a way where companies partner early on to build scale, to build proof points, it just then enables them to go after the next set of demand.”
The Physical AI Signal
The $1.3 billion raise reflects a broader capital reallocation. Geopolitical supply-chain pressures, government investment in domestic manufacturing, and advances in AI systems capable of managing industrial processes have all made physical AI more attractive to institutional investors, per TechFundingNews. Eclipse’s fund size signals that serious capital is moving from software agents (chat interfaces, coding tools, browser automation) toward agents that operate in the physical world with motors, sensors, and real-world consequences.