Israeli startup Pliops, which develops cloud storage processors, raises $30M Series B led by Softbank Ventures Asia
Pliops will use the funds to accelerate development of its storage processor technology for cloud storage and database applications. — Israeli cloud storage solutions …
Context & Ripple Effects
This 2019 round is the early chapter of a longer arc: the $30M from Softbank Ventures Asia funded the storage-processor bet that carried Pliops to its much larger $100M Series D for flash-memory acceleration chips three years later, confirming data-center buyers were real.
Pliops was also raising into a crowded lane — Tel Aviv's NeuroBlade had just pulled in $83M for processing-in-memory analytics, part of a wave that saw Hailo reach a ~$1B valuation on AI silicon within days of each other.
First-order effects
- Softbank Ventures Asia's lead gives Pliops the capital to accelerate its cloud storage processor toward database and flash workloads, moving it from R&D story to product roadmap.
Second-order effects
- NeuroBlade and other processing-near-memory startups face validation pressure in both directions — Pliops' raise proves investors will fund the offload thesis, but also that the niche has multiple well-funded contenders chasing the same data-center sockets.
Third-order effects
- If flash-heavy databases keep outgrowing CPU scaling, storage processing consolidates into a distinct chip category alongside compute accelerators — with Israel emerging as a repeat supplier hub, as Hailo's unicorn valuation already signaled.
The trend: Data-center silicon is fragmenting into specialized offload chips, with Israeli startups like Pliops, NeuroBlade, and Hailo attracting successive rounds as hyperscale flash and AI workloads outrun general-purpose CPUs.