Ayar Labs Valuation 2026: Above $5B, Up From $3.75B Six Months Earlier

Ayar Labs is worth more than $5 billion as of September 2026, a price set by a $225 million secondary sale, up from $3.75 billion six months earlier and just above $1 billion in December 2024.

Ayar Labs, the San Jose, California-based maker of optical chips that connect AI accelerators, extended its Series E by $150 million on September 10, 2026, and at the same time Antero Peak Group at Artisan Partners led a $225 million purchase of shares from early employees and investors that valued the company at more than $5 billion, Reuters reported. We covered the raise in our Pulse story on Ayar Labs' $650 million year; this page tracks the valuation over time.

Ayar Labs Valuation: The $5 Billion Secondary

Ayar Labs' current valuation, more than $5 billion, comes from a secondary transaction rather than a priced primary round. Antero Peak Group at Artisan Partners led a $225 million secondary share purchase from early employees and investors that valued Ayar at more than $5 billion, with Sequoia Global Equities, ARK Invest and Greycroft taking part, Reuters reported on September 10, 2026. The money went to the sellers, not to Ayar.

The step-up from the March Series E is at least 33% (Value Add VC's arithmetic: $5 billion against $3.75 billion; the reported figure is "more than" $5 billion, so the true markup is higher by an undisclosed amount). Secondary prices can differ from what a primary round would pay, because the shares changing hands may carry different rights than new preferred stock; Reuters did not say which class was sold. The $5 billion figure is a market price for existing shares, not a new round on the company's books.

How Has Ayar Labs' Valuation Changed?

Ayar Labs was founded in 2015 and did not raise significant outside capital until 2020, when it took in $35 million, SiliconANGLE noted. Ayar Labs raised $155 million in December 2024 at a valuation above $1 billion, led by Advent Global Opportunities and Light Street Capital with AMD Ventures, Intel Capital and Nvidia participating, which brought its total funding to $370 million, Pulse 2.0 reported.

Ayar Labs raised a $500 million Series E at a $3.75 billion valuation on March 3, 2026, led by Neuberger Berman, taking its total funding to $870 million, according to the company's announcement. New investors in that round included Alchip Technologies, ARK Invest, Insight Partners, MediaTek, Qatar Investment Authority, Sequoia Global Equities and 1789 Capital. Six months later came the $150 million extension and the secondary.

Ayar Labs Funding History

How we counted: primary rounds and the one disclosed secondary; amounts and valuations as each source states them; 2015 to September 10, 2026; as of October 15, 2026. Sources: SiliconANGLE, Pulse 2.0, Reuters via SRN News.

Why Are Investors Paying More for Ayar Labs?

Ayar Labs makes co-packaged optics: its TeraPHY optical engines, powered by the SuperNova remote light source, move data between AI chips over fiber instead of copper, Unite.AI reported. "Copper interconnect is becoming the limiting factor for AI scale-up," CEO Mark Wade said in the company's September 10 announcement. As clusters stretch past a single server rack, the links between chips cost power and heat, and optics is the industry's main answer.

The cap table explains much of the price. Nvidia, AMD and MediaTek, three companies that would put Ayar's chips next to their own, all invested, along with Intel, chip designer Alchip and Taiwanese server maker Wiwynn. A buyer of Ayar stock is buying a company whose likely customers have already paid to be on its side.

When Will Ayar Labs Make Money at Scale?

Not before 2028, on the company's own timeline. "If my customers' products are looking to ramp in the 2028-2029 time frame, we have to have all of our stuff qualified for volume production by the end of the 2027 time frame," Wade told Reuters. SiliconANGLE reported that Ayar hopes to bring the technology to the mass market by early 2028.

The 2026 money is going to that transition: product development, validation, scaling the manufacturing supply chain and a new design center in Bengaluru, India, which adds to engineering teams in the US and Hsinchu, Taiwan. Ayar has not disclosed revenue.

What the headline misses

The $5 billion price rests on revenue that, by the CEO's own schedule, arrives in 2028 at the earliest. Between now and then Ayar has to get its parts qualified at foundries and packaging partners in volume, which is where many chip startups stall. A two-year delay in customers' system ramps would push the payoff out with it.

Strategic investors cut both ways, too. Nvidia, AMD and Intel investing in Ayar does not commit any of them to buy its parts, and each has the engineering budget to build or source optics another way. Optical interconnect is a crowded field; our Eliyan valuation analysis covers one of the other chip-connection startups raising on the same thesis.

The Bottom Line

Ayar Labs' valuation is above $5 billion as of September 2026, set by a $225 million secondary, after a $3.75 billion Series E in March and a valuation just above $1 billion in December 2024. The company has raised just over $1 billion in total, $650 million of it in 2026, and is aiming for volume production by the end of 2027. The next mark to watch is a priced primary round or an IPO filing; neither has been announced. Track this and other AI infrastructure rounds on our AI valuations tracker.