Semiconductors
PrivateExaflop-scale photonic AI chips that replace electrons with light
Austin-based semiconductor startup building optical processing units (OPUs) that deliver 100x the performance per watt of traditional GPUs. Founded by Dr. Patrick Bowen and Dr. Andrew Traverso, backed by $118M from Gates Frontier, Microsoft M12, and strategic investors.
Funding
The balance sheet is fixed but the business is not — at ~4x EV/sales with a -27% GAAP gross margin, a commoditizing substrate core, and a ~35% burned-strategic overhang (Renesas), WOLF is priced for an AI-datacenter / 200mm-utilization inflection the P&L will not confirm before FY27; WATCHING until gross margin crosses zero.
The purest listed play on the Big-3's DDR4 exit — a real supply-shock oligopoly windfall (GM 30%→53% in six quarters, sold out through 2027), but +890% in a year prices a transient legacy-DRAM squeeze as if it were a structural moat; WATCHING, not chasing, at 52× trailing peak-cycle earnings.
A textbook semiconductor cyclical wearing a secular-growth costume — the 2024–25 CIS recovery is real and automotive is a genuine share-taking engine, but 2026 consensus EPS has already been cut BELOW 2025's actual and Q1-2026 net profit fell ~42% YoY while the stock still holds ~35x trailing; the automotive ramp must out-run mobile normalization and domestic price competition to justify the multiple. WATCHING — constructive only on a reset toward ~25x or hard evidence auto mix is structurally l
Veeco has stopped being a fundamentals stock — it is a 0.3575-Axcelis tracking certificate trading ~12% ABOVE its own merger terms; the clean AI-WFE/power expression is Axcelis (ACLS), and VECO mechanically converges DOWN to ~$51 into an H2-2026 close unless China's SAMR blocks the consolidation (the only VECO-specific bull case).