Exclusive: Israeli chip company proteanTecs is currently raising $50 million at a company valuation of over $600 million. Sources have told “Globes,” that the Haifa-based company, which was founded by veteran Mellanox executives, has signed several agreements with some of the world’s largest chip manufacturers, including Microsoft and Annapurna Labs, which design graphics processors, and formed partnerships with chip manufacturing plants like TSMC, Intel and Global Foundries.
The funding provides proteanTecs with a relatively low multiple, around 10 times the company’s annual sales, which are estimated at over $60 million – a multiple similar to that of other chip companies. AMD’s revenue multiple, for example, is six, TSMC’s is seven, and Nvidia’s figure is 20.
proteanTecs helps Microsoft and Annapurna Labs, Amazon’s processor division, as well as other chip manufacturers, track chip performance over time, monitor specific problems and fix them remotely. A new feature attributed to a proteanTecs component solves a critical problem for cloud giants, the largest consumers of GPUs for running AI services. The Israeli company’s monitoring component can reduce the power consumption of AI servers by up to 14% – and in the process save millions of dollars in AI processing costs.
According to estimates, proteanTecs is responsible for improving the performance of millions of GPUs for training AI models and inference, as well as core processors in servers in the data centers of technology giants. The launch of the component has brought the company a number of new agreements.
Among companies taking an interest in proteanTecs is graphics processor giant Nvidia, which is considering acquiring the Israeli company’s product. Nvidia has been in talks with proteanTecs for some time, but has not yet reached an agreement. There is a historical connection between the two companies. proteanTecs’ founders, including CEO Shai Cohen and CTO Evelyn Landman, are former founders of Mellanox, which was sold to Nvidia in 2020 for $6.9 billion. Other founders are COO Ron Ashuri, silicon technologies principal senior engineer Eyal Fayneh VP software development Yuval Bonen, and machine learning principal engineer Dr. Yahel David. Cohen even served as a senior executive at Mellanox until he was ousted by Starboard, the activist investor that took over the company’s board of directors before its sale. The two are friends with the senior team at Nvidia Israel, including Amit Krig and Michael Kagan, and have maintained close contact since leaving Mellanox.
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Senior backers
Among the early investors in proteanTecs was Intel’s new CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who also serves as a director. Tan invested in the company in 2019 along with his former Israeli investment partner, serial chip entrepreneur Avigdor Willenz. According to the venture capital database PitchBook, the Israeli company was forced to compromise and reduce its valuation from $558 million in September 2021 to only $184 million in May 2022. But this latest $50 million financing round boosts the company’s valuation to over $600 million. The company has raised $250 million to date.
In addition to Tan, the company boasts other senior board members including Lee Fixel, a US investor who previously served as a partner at Tiger Global and invested in companies such as Facebook, Stripe and Spotify. proteanTec’s advisory board includes former Intel SVP and Global; Foundries SVP Amir Faintuch, now Volumez CEO; David Perlmutter, also a former Intel SVP; Raanan Gewirtzman, former CEO of Broadlight, which was sold to Broadcom; and Veijo Kontas, former head of hardware development at Nokia chips.
Other proteanTecs board members include Viola’s Shlomo Dovrat and Zvika Orron, Intel Capital’s Noam Kaiser, and Koch Disruptive Technologies (KDT) Isaac Sigron. The company has an estimated 200 employees, in development centers in Haifa and Tel Aviv, support centers in India, and marketing and sales offices in the US, East Asia and Europe.
The company declined to comment on this report.
Published by Globes, Israel business news – en.globes.co.il – on May 8, 2025.
© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2025.
