Matter Venture Partners has announced the closing of its second fund with $450 million in committed capital. The fund will target early-stage HardTech startups across semiconductors, robotics and Physical AI, AI infrastructure, quantum computing, advanced manufacturing, energy building blocks, and AI for science. The close reflects growing investor interest in hardware technologies that underpin artificial intelligence and modern computing.
Strategy and Market Opportunity
HardTech companies require more than capital because founders must manage technical development, manufacturing, supply chains, commercialization, and customer delivery simultaneously. Matter Venture Partners was created in 2023 to provide hands-on ecosystem support for these challenges. Its second fund will follow the same early-stage approach as the first and focus on critical bottlenecks across the HardTech landscape.
The firm invests in areas where artificial intelligence is driving demand for faster chips, more efficient computing, greater data center capacity, and intelligent machines that operate reliably in real-world settings. This demand has accelerated the need for advanced manufacturing and energy infrastructure to support next-generation hardware. Matter views these sectors as foundational to the continued expansion of AI and automation.
Leadership and Operator Experience
Matter Venture Partners was founded by Wen Hsieh, Haomiao Huang, and Mel Tang, who each bring extensive experience building and scaling technology businesses. Hsieh spent 17 years at Kleiner Perkins leading the firm's HardTech practice as a general partner. Huang is a repeat entrepreneur and engineer who invested alongside Hsieh before co-founding Matter, while Tang served as chief financial officer at Ring and Demand Media.
The leadership team emphasizes an operator perspective when working with founders. As former founders and startup executives, the partners aim to help entrepreneurs anticipate challenges and scale with greater speed and discipline. Since launching the firm, they have built a global team with technical depth, operating experience, and close industry relationships.
Global Strategic Limited Partners
Matter's strategic limited partners include ASML, Development Bank of Japan, Kleiner Perkins, Nitto Denko, Quanta Computer, Resonac, Sojitz, and TSMC. These organizations bring expertise in equipment development, contract manufacturing, energy management, advanced materials, precision manufacturing, automation, and technology commercialization. They also work closely with portfolio companies as technology collaborators, early customers, co-investors, manufacturing partners, and suppliers.
Wen Hsieh noted that HardTech is global from day one and requires navigating complex supply chains, manufacturing scale-up, technology partnerships, talent management, and customer relationships around the world. Matter has built a global network to extend hands-on support to portfolio companies. This network includes operating partners, advisors, and limited partners in the United States, Taiwan, Japan, Europe, Singapore, the Middle East, South Korea, and Mexico.
Portfolio Momentum
Matter has already invested in a range of startups shaping the HardTech industry. Q.ai was acquired by Apple in January 2026, and Rhoda AI announced a $450 million Series A in March 2026 to advance rapidly deployable robotic intelligence. Eridu is building a faster network switch designed to improve GPU utilization and energy efficiency in AI data centers.
Path Robotics is developing Physical AI for heavy manufacturing and recently entered an agreement with Huntington Ingalls Industries to accelerate shipbuilding in the United States. Volta came out of stealth with a $10 billion AI lab partnership and a $5 billion AI infrastructure program. ChipAgents uses agentic AI to reduce chip design timelines for its semiconductor customers by up to 80 percent.
Ambiq, whose ultra-low power processors are used in AI-enabled wearables such as Oura and Garmin, completed its initial public offering in July 2025. Haomiao Huang stated that if AI is going to eat the world, hardware will be its teeth. He added that Matter was built to back founders solving these bottlenecks and to help accelerate breakthrough ideas to real-world scale.
Matter Venture Partners' $450 million second fund signals continued confidence in the HardTech sector as demand for advanced hardware accelerates. The firm combines operational experience with a global network of strategic partners to support early-stage companies through complex scaling environments. By backing founders across foundational technology areas, Matter aims to turn breakthrough hardware ideas into large-scale commercial success.