Seligman Ventures doubles capital to $1 billion as AI boom revives hardware bets

Sept 28 : Seligman Investments has doubled the deployable capital of its venture arm to $1 billion less than a year after launching it, betting that the physical bottlenecks of the artificial intelligence buildout will produce the next wave of large technology companies, its executives told Reuters.

Seligman Ventures, the private investment arm of the Silicon Valley-based technology investor, launched in February 2026 with $500 million and has since invested over $300 million across 14 investments in AI hardware, connectivity and cybersecurity.

The expansion reflects renewed investor interest in capital-intensive hardware after two decades in which Silicon Valley returns were built largely on software. Venture investment in U.S. and Canadian startups hit a record $392 billion in the first half of 2026, about $10.7 billion of which went into semiconductor startups, on pace to exceed last year's total, according to Crunchbase.

"The amount of deal flow we have gotten is 10 or 15 times more than what I anticipated when I joined," said Umesh Padval, managing partner at Seligman Ventures. "We didn't want to lose the AI, cybersecurity or the datacenter train." 

Seligman's portfolio spans much of what goes into a data center, from Nvidia competitor SambaNova to optical maker Lumilens.

The firm is pursuing a barbell strategy, pairing early-stage bets with late-stage and pre-IPO checks, Padval said. It will continue to look for investment opportunities in accelerators, networking, power and cooling, as well as cybersecurity.

The capital increase is also part of a broader push by public-market managers to reach technology companies earlier, as startups stay private for longer. Unlike many crossover funds, which are public-market investors that also buy into private companies, Seligman takes an active role, holding six board seats and three board observer seats. 

It is a second attempt at venture investing for Paul Wick, chief investment officer of Columbia, Seligman's technology business. An earlier late-stage effort launched in 1997 was wound down after the dot-com collapse. Wick cited a lack of board representation, reliance on third-party deal sourcing and team selection as the lessons from that period.

"This time around we have two people who are going on boards of companies," Wick said. "Our ability to protect ourselves and to better understand our private-company investments is just so enhanced."

The venture platform draws on a public-markets operation led by Wick, who manages the roughly $29 billion Columbia Seligman Technology and Information Fund. The firm also oversees a $7.5 billion technology hedge fund business.

That structure is central to Seligman's pitch against traditional venture firms. The venture team brings private sourcing and board involvement, and works with public market analysts to assess whether a startup can withstand competition from established players, executives said.

"We have a private knowledge of 400 companies in the private world. We marry that with public-market data analysis to bring out a thesis as to which ones we invest in," said Padval, who expects to make five to 10 new investments over the next 12 months.