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§ Private Profile · 349 Cobalt Way Ste 305 Sunnyvale, CA 94085
Semiconductor and AI infrastructure solutions developing photonic fabric technology for AI data centers, focused on optical interconnects.
Celestial AI is a semiconductor manufacturing company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops photonic fabric technology and optical interconnects for artificial intelligence data centers. The venture-backed enterprise currently operates with approximately 121 employees and has successfully secured over $515 million in total venture capital funding to scale its proprietary hardware platforms. The organization specializes in enabling scalable computing through optical solutions that accelerate data transfer rates and reduce power consumption across complex AI infrastructure. Its primary commercial focus remains on supporting deep learning and machine learning workloads for enterprise customers requiring specialized hardware systems. The executive management team brings extensive industry experience from major technology firms, including previous leadership roles managing operations and engineering at Applied Materials, MACOM, Mindspeed Technologies, and Bell Labs. Celestial AI was founded in 2020 by David Lazovsky and Preet Virk.
Celential.ai has raised $10.0M across 1 funding round.
Celential.ai has raised $10.0M in total across 1 funding round.
Celential.ai has raised $10.0M across 1 funding round. Most recently, it raised $10.0M Series A in March 2021.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 1, 2021 | $10M Series A | GSR Ventures | BoxGroup, Foothill Ventures (formerly Tsingyuan Ventures), Lightspeed China Partners, Madrona Venture Group, Mayfield, Mischief Venture Capital, The House Fund, Tsvc Capital, Uncork Capital, Webb Investment Network, JON Gelsey, Scott Belsky, Spider Capital, TSVC | Announced |
Celential.ai has raised $10.0M in total across 1 funding round.
Celential.ai's investors include GSR Ventures, BoxGroup, Foothill Ventures (formerly Tsingyuan Ventures), Lightspeed China Partners, Madrona Ventures, Mayfield, Mischief Venture Capital, The House Fund, TSVC Capital, Uncork Capital, Webb Investment Network, Jon Gelsey.
Celential.ai is an AI-powered recruiting platform designed to automate talent sourcing for tech roles, particularly software engineering. It builds a proprietary Talent Graph analyzing billions of data points from social networks, technical communities, and personal projects to match over 20 million passive candidates to specific jobs, teams, and companies using machine learning and natural language processing[1][4][5]. The platform serves startups and tech companies struggling with top-of-funnel hiring, solving the problem of finding qualified passive candidates—especially from underrepresented groups—by delivering 20-40 engaged candidates per role monthly via hyper-personalized outreach, with high interview acceptance rates and significant cost savings over traditional methods[1][5][6]. Its growth includes a $9.5M Series A funding round and acquisition by Wellfound, accelerating its integration into broader recruiting ecosystems[6][7].
Celential.ai was founded by engineers with decades of experience building and leading tech teams, who faced persistent challenges in sourcing talent and sought to transcend traditional recruiting[1][5]. The idea emerged from their hands-on frustrations, leading to the development of an initial Talent Graph and virtual recruiter product that leverages domain-specific data on software engineers from professional communities, personal sites, and online forums[4]. Early traction came from focusing on the software development vertical, where human-AI collaboration allowed domain experts to tune models for precise matching, differentiating it from black-box AI approaches[4]. Key milestones include raising $9.5M in Series A funding led by GSR Ventures and appointing a new CEO to scale the virtual recruiter service, followed by acquisition by Wellfound to enhance startup hiring pipelines[6][7].
Celential.ai stands out in AI recruiting through these key strengths:
Celential.ai rides the AI-driven talent crisis wave in tech hiring, where exponential demand for engineers outpaces supply amid economic shifts and remote work expansion[1][4][6]. Its timing aligns with maturing NLP and ML for recruitment, enabling automation of sourcing amid 2020s hiring booms for startups, while addressing biases in traditional methods by unlocking overlooked talent pools[1][5]. Market forces like rising labor costs, passive candidate dominance (most tech talent isn't actively job-hunting), and AI adoption in HR favor it, as seen in its Series A and Wellfound acquisition, which integrates it into startup ecosystems for mutual-fit matching[6][7]. By streamlining top-of-funnel processes, it influences the ecosystem by boosting diversity, reducing time-to-hire, and freeing teams to focus on interviews—fueling faster scaling for AI and tech innovators[1][5][6].
Celential.ai's acquisition by Wellfound positions it for explosive growth, blending its Talent Graph with Wellfound's candidate data to redefine startup recruiting as a seamless, AI-human hybrid[6]. Upcoming trends like advanced AI reasoning, global talent mobility, and diversity mandates will amplify its edge, potentially expanding beyond software engineering to data science and other verticals[4][5]. Its influence may evolve into a core infrastructure layer for tech hiring platforms, driving efficiency as AI workloads demand ever-larger engineering teams—echoing its founding mission to scale beyond traditional limits[1][7].