Avigdor Willenz
About Avigdor Willenz
Avigdor Willenz is based in Sunnyvale, California, according to Crunchbase. He is Co-founder and Chairman of Lightbits Labs and Chairman of Lyte AI. Wikipedia lists him as an Israeli electronics entrepreneur born in 1957 in Rehovot, with an electrical engineering education at the Technion. MarketScreener lists his early career as Chief Engineer and Product Definition Manager at Renesas Electronics America from 1988 to 1992.
He founded Galileo Technology in 1992. It sold merchant switching silicon, and Marvell acquired it in January 2001 for $2.7 billion. He was then a founding investor in Annapurna Labs in 2011. Annapurna built server chips for Amazon Web Services, and Amazon acquired it in 2015 for about $370 million, per Wikipedia and CTech.
In 2016 he became president and first investor of Lightbits Labs, which he co-founded. He also co-founded Habana Labs and was its chairman. Crunchbase counts 4 companies founded by him. MarketScreener also lists him as founder of Element Labs (2024) and a former independent director at Accton Technology (2021 to 2023).
Per Crunchbase, Avigdor Willenz has made 18 investments, 5 as lead investor, across 11 portfolio companies. He has 3 exits, including 1 IPO. Crunchbase names Vdoo, DustPhotonics and Astera Labs as his most notable exits. PitchBook classifies him as an angel investor, but its counts differ from Crunchbase, so treat any single total as approximate.
His pattern is to invest first and then stay on as chairman or director. Battery Ventures describes how its relationship with him on Habana Labs led it to invest in his next company, Xsight Labs. Before Habana and Xsight, he was an investor in Leaba Semiconductor, which Cisco acquired in March 2016. Wikipedia reports the price as $320 million.
CTech reported in 2026 that DustPhotonics, where he is chairman, is being acquired by Credo Technology Group in a deal worth up to roughly $1.3 billion. That includes $750 million in cash and $123 million in shares, plus a potential earnout.
Habana Labs is the clearest AI example. It was founded in 2016 to build processors for AI training and inference. CTech reports that Willenz became its first investor in 2016 and led a $9 million seed round. Intel announced in December 2019 that it would acquire Habana for about $2 billion.
Xsight Labs, where he is founding investor and chairman, has been described by Globes as an AI chip company. Globes also reported in 2026 that it was raising $300 million. Crunchbase lists a 2018 funding round for Xsight Labs with Willenz as an investor.
In January 2026, Lyte emerged from stealth with an aggregate of $107 million raised. It is based in Mountain View and works on perception for physical AI. The company's announcement names Willenz as founding investor and Chairman of the Board. Crunchbase lists him as lead investor in a Lyte AI round.
Globes reported in 2026 that Element Labs, which he founded, was raising funds at a $4 billion valuation. It added that the company operates without a website or public executive interviews.
The public record shows a consistent focus on semiconductors and the hardware layer of computing: switching chips, server silicon, AI accelerators, data center networking and storage, and sensing for physical AI. CTech describes his pattern as early bets on companies at the technological bottlenecks of computing.
Most of his documented investments are early-stage companies founded by chip industry veterans. In several he took the founding or first-investor role and a chairman seat. Many are in Israel, with some, such as Lyte, based in California.
He has not published a check size, a stated thesis or a pitch process, and none was found. Founders should not assume he takes cold inbound pitches. Most documented deals appear to come through existing industry relationships.
- Lyte: physical AI perception company based in Mountain View; founding investor and Chairman, emerged from stealth in January 2026 with $107M raised in total.
- Habana Labs: AI training and inference processors; first investor and seed lead in 2016, acquired by Intel in December 2019.
- Xsight Labs: AI and networking chip company; founding investor and chairman, with a 2018 round listed on Crunchbase.
- Lightbits Labs: cloud storage infrastructure company; co-founder and chairman, first investor in 2016.
- Annapurna Labs: server chips for AWS; founding investor in 2011, acquired by Amazon in 2015.
- DustPhotonics: photonics company; chairman, being acquired by Credo Technology Group per CTech.
- Astera Labs: listed by Crunchbase among his notable exits.
- Quantum Machines: Crunchbase lists a round with him as investor, and he is listed as a director.
- proteanTecs: Willenz is listed as a director on MarketScreener, and Tracxn lists it as a notable investment.
- Leaba Semiconductor: acquired by Cisco in March 2016.
- crunchbase.com/person/avigdor-willenz
- crunchbase.com/person/avigdor-willenz/person_overview_investor/timelin
- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avigdor_Willenz
- marketscreener.com/insider/AVIGDOR-WILLENZ-A00IMW
- pitchbook.com/profiles/investor/107383-69
- battery.com/blog/habana-labs-case-study
- calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3775996,00.html
- calcalistech.com/ctechnews/article/rkfivijn11g
Investing activity
Avigdor Willenz has made 18 investments according to Crunchbase across 11 portfolio companies, and has led 5 rounds, seen 3 exits, 1 of them by IPO and founded 4 companies.
Deals
Frequently asked questions about Avigdor Willenz
Does Avigdor Willenz invest in AI startups?
Yes, mainly in AI hardware and infrastructure. He was first investor and seed lead at Habana Labs, is founding investor and chairman of Xsight Labs, and is founding investor and chairman of Lyte, a physical AI perception company.
What is Avigdor Willenz's check size?
No check size is public. Crunchbase and other databases do not list reliable amounts for his personal investments, and he has not published a range.
What stage does Avigdor Willenz invest in?
His documented deals are mostly at the start of a company. He led Habana Labs' $9 million seed round in 2016 and was founding investor in Xsight Labs, Annapurna Labs and Lyte.
How many investments has Avigdor Willenz made?
Crunchbase lists 18 investments across 11 portfolio companies, 5 of them as lead investor. It also lists 3 exits, including 1 IPO, and 4 companies founded. Other databases such as PitchBook show different totals.
What companies has Avigdor Willenz founded or built?
He founded Galileo Technology, which Marvell acquired in 2001, and was a founding investor in Annapurna Labs, which Amazon acquired in 2015. He co-founded Habana Labs, which Intel acquired in 2019, and Lightbits Labs. He is also listed as founder of Element Labs.
Where can founders contact Avigdor Willenz?
No personal website, verified LinkedIn profile or X account was found. Founders usually reach investors like him through warm introductions from the semiconductor and infrastructure community, or through his portfolio companies.
Is Avigdor Willenz an angel investor?
Yes. Avigdor Willenz invests personally as an angel and is Co-founder and Chairman at Lightbits Labs. Crunchbase counts 18 investments and 3 exits.
Where is Avigdor Willenz based?
Avigdor Willenz is based in Sunnyvale, California, United States.
How can founders reach Avigdor Willenz?
Founders on Lounge can see Avigdor Willenz's contact details in AI Investor Contacts (paid plans), check for a warm introduction through members who worked with them under Warm Paths, and add Avigdor Willenz to their Investor Pipeline to track the conversation.