Eclipse's Lior Susan on $12.5B AUM and the Bet on Physical Industries

Eclipse spent 8 years investing in manufacturing, space, semiconductors, defense & mining while the rest of Silicon Valley funded SaaS. Lior Susan says the math was never close.

Lior Susan is the Founder & CEO of Eclipse, the Palo Alto firm he started in 2015 with a $125M debut fund alongside Pierre Lamond, who was 85 at the time & had already spent a career at Fairchild Semiconductor under Gordon Moore, co-founded National Semiconductor, & put in 27 years as a GP at Sequoia Capital. Lamond is 96 now and still mentors the team.

"We never thought ourselves as venture capital. We call it operators with capital because we are operators with capital."

Eclipse manages approximately $12.5B and closed $1.3B in April 2026 across Eclipse Fund VI and Early Growth III, its largest raise to date. The firm's 2016 Series A into Cerebras returned roughly $2.5B at the $185 IPO price in May 2026 on a total of about $147M invested.

Eclipse portfolio companies have raised $15.9B in 2026 alone, including $1.2B for Wayve, $650M for True Anomaly, $270M for Bedrock Robotics, $220M for VulcanForms and $200M for Oxide. In September 2026, Eclipse incubation Noetive came out of stealth with a $41M seed led by the firm. Susan was named to the 2026 Forbes Midas List.

Lior Susan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liorsusan/

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(00:00) Lior Susan, Founder & CEO at Eclipse

(01:02) The story behind Eclipse

(02:35) How Lior met Pierre

(07:33) Why physical companies need operators

(12:35) How Mind Robotics was spun out of Rivian

(15:41) Why Lior started Eclipse

(18:21) Why building physical companies is so hard

(24:33) Inside Eclipse’s physical industry bet

(36:01) Building the "Eclipse Economy"

(40:08) Why physical infrastructure creates jobs

(41:19) From banana farmer to VC

(43:37) What it really means to support a portfolio company

(46:00) Who inspires Lior?