Semiconductor startup Celero Communications announced on Nov. 17 that it closed $140 million in total funding to tackle one of artificial intelligence’s most critical infrastructure challenges: bandwidth limits in AI data centers.
Celero Communications pulled in $100 million during its Series B round, with CapitalG, Alphabet’s (NASDAQ:GOOG, GOOGL)) independent growth fund, serving as lead investor.
The Irvine, California-based company previously raised $40 million across seed and Series A rounds led by Sutter Hill Ventures, with participation from Valor Equity Partners, Atreides Management, and Maverick Silicon.
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Former Marvell And Broadcom Leaders Build New Platform For AI Bandwidth Demands
The startup develops coherent digital signal processor platforms that address bandwidth constraints in AI data centers. The company opened for business in 2024 with headquarters in California and design facilities in Canada and Argentina.
According to Celero Communications, founders Nariman Yousefi and Oscar Agazzi previously held senior roles at Marvell Technology (NASDAQ:MRVL), Inphi (NASDAQ:IPHI), Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO), and ClariPhy, where they shipped networking solutions and digital signal processor products. Yousefi serves as Celero Communications' CEO.
AI systems require massive data transfers between accelerators and across data center networks, according to The Bandwidth Report. Current optical connectivity approaches struggle with power consumption, cost efficiency, and bandwidth capacity as AI clusters expand beyond single-rack configurations, a symposium paper written by composable infrastructure and optical interconnect systems provider Cerio Chief Technology Officer Matthew Williams says.
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“As AI models and clusters grow exponentially, today’s data centers face severe limits in bandwidth, cost, and energy efficiency,” Yousefi said in the company's statement. “Our coherent DSP technology delivers the optical performance and scalability needed to remove these bottlenecks, establishing the foundation for large-scale, accelerated computing networks.”
Celero Develops Optical DSP Platform For High-Density AI Accelerator Fabrics
Celero Communications said its platform handles signal processing for optical connections between AI accelerators and cloud infrastructure. The technology aims to improve bandwidth efficiency while reducing power consumption compared to existing solutions.
Data centers transitioning from thousands to millions of AI accelerators need optical connectivity that can maintain performance at scale. Coherent DSP chips process light signals traveling through fiber optic cables, enabling faster data transmission with lower energy requirements, according to a semiconductor company Marvell Technology blog post.
“Amid the explosive growth of artificial intelligence, Celero is uniquely positioned to meet the soaring demands of AI infrastructure,” CapitalG General Partner James Luo said in Celero Communications' statement. “The experienced leadership and differentiated architecture at Celero position the company to lead in AI-driven network innovation.”
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Celero's Leadership Team Leans On Decades Of DSP Commercialization Experience
The founding team’s background includes multiple product cycles in coherent optical technology. Yousefi and Agazzi worked on DSP development and networking chip commercialization at their previous companies.
“Celero’s coherent DSP innovation directly addresses one of the most pressing challenges in AI infrastructure: efficient, scalable optical connectivity,” Sutter Hill Ventures Managing Director Stefan Dyckerhoff said in Celero Communications' statement. “The team’s track record in building and commercializing advanced coherent solutions is unmatched in the industry, and their focused approach positions Celero to lead the next wave of AI infrastructure.”
The capital will support product development and market entry as cloud providers and enterprise operators expand AI computing capacity, the company said.
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