The Term Sheet: Lattice Closes $1.65B AMI Deal, Atoms Raises $1.7B, Quantum Systems Hits $8B

The CODEW | THE Term SHEET | July 29, 2026

Featured Deal Analysis

Lattice Semiconductor Closes $1.65B AMI Acquisition, Betting the Data Center on Secure Firmware

What happened: Lattice Semiconductor (NASDAQ: LSCC) completed its $1.65 billion acquisition of AMI on July 27, 2026, positioning the combined business as a full secure management and control platform for data center AI and physical AI applications. First announced May 4, 2026, the deal was financed with $1.0 billion in cash and roughly $650 million in Lattice stock.

Who's involved: Lattice, the low-power programmable FPGA specialist, acquired AMI from THL Partners. Ford Tamer stays on as President and CEO of Lattice, while former AMI CEO Sanjoy Maity now runs the AMI business unit as SVP and GM.

Financial terms: $1.65 billion total consideration ($1.0B cash, ~$650M stock). AMI was generating more than $200 million in annual revenue. Lattice expects the deal to be immediately accretive to gross margin, free cash flow, and non-GAAP EPS, and is now targeting a $1 billion-plus annual revenue run rate by the end of 2026.

Strategic rationale: The combination pairs Lattice's low-power FPGAs with AMI's platform firmware and infrastructure-manageability technology — addressing the security, power, and performance demands of modern AI infrastructure. Both companies have committed to staying silicon-neutral and ecosystem-agnostic, which matters for hyperscalers, OEMs, and ODMs that want flexibility across chip vendors.

Why it matters: This ranks among the most consequential semiconductor deals of 2026. As AI data centers scale into multi-gigawatt facilities, the intersection of hardware and firmware becomes a chokepoint for security and reliability. Lattice is effectively buying the plumbing layer every AI server needs — a defensive, high-margin business built on long-term contracts. For enterprise buyers, it's another sign the AI infrastructure stack is consolidating vertically, with chipmakers increasingly owning firmware through silicon.

Deal Roundup

M&A

Micross Acquires AEMtec, Expanding European Advanced Packaging Footprint

Micross Components, backed by Behrman Capital, acquired AEMtec, a German provider of advanced micro- and optoelectronic modules, semiconductor packaging, testing, and assembly services. Terms weren't disclosed. The deal expands Micross's European advanced-packaging and photonics capabilities — increasingly important as semiconductor supply chains regionalize in the post-CHIPS Act environment. The deal is subject to customary closing conditions.

Vena Acquires Morpheo AI to Advance Finance-Focused Agentic Data Platform

Vena Solutions acquired Morpheo AI, whose enterprise agentic data platform prepares, curates, structures, and enriches fragmented enterprise data for AI applications. The deal, announced July 28, advances Vena's AI strategy for financial planning and analysis. Terms were not disclosed.

Startup Funding

Atoms Raises $1.7B Led by Andreessen Horowitz for Industrial Robotics Empire

Travis Kalanick's robotics holding company Atoms raised $1.7 billion in equity financing led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Uber, Bain Capital, and Fifth Wall; Ben Horowitz is joining the board. Built atop Kalanick's CloudKitchens and the acquired industrial automation firm Pronto, Atoms is pursuing a "bits-to-atoms" strategy spanning food, mining, and transport logistics, and has now raised roughly $3.4 billion in total.

Quantum Systems Raises $1.2B Series D at $8B Valuation for Defense Autonomy

German drone and autonomous systems maker Quantum Systems raised $1.2 billion in Series D financing co-led by Blackstone, Noteus, Airbus, and Advent, more than doubling its valuation to roughly $8 billion post-money. The company, which flew over 19,000 missions in Ukraine in 2025, will use the proceeds to scale its multi-domain autonomous platform MOSAIC UXS across air, land, and sea; Airbus Defence and Space simultaneously deepened its strategic collaboration with the company.

Joulent Secures $1.75B Strategic Investment from National Grid for AI Power Infrastructure

Houston-based energy developer Joulent received a $1.75 billion strategic investment from National Grid Ventures for a 35% stake. Joulent is building dedicated power infrastructure for AI data centers, starting with Project Kilby — a 2.67 GW gas-fired facility in West Texas developed with Chevron and backed by a 20-year Microsoft power purchase agreement. First power delivery is targeted for 2028.

8090 Solutions Raises $135M Series A Led by Salesforce Ventures

Chamath Palihapitiya's AI-native software factory 8090 Solutions raised $135 million in Series A funding led by Salesforce Ventures, with participation from WndrCo, Craft Ventures, The Production Board, LAUNCH, and angels including Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora and Quora co-founder Adam D'Angelo. Palihapitiya has stepped in as full-time CEO. The company's "Software Factory" platform lets enterprises in regulated industries build applications from natural-language inputs, pairing AI agents with human engineers in a governed environment.

Venice AI Becomes Unicorn with $65M Series A for Privacy-First AI

Venice AI raised $65 million in its first external funding round at a $1 billion valuation, led by Dragonfly with participation from Coinbase Ventures and North Island Ventures. The platform offers private, uncensored access to more than 200 AI models without logging user prompts or storing conversations locally, and reports 3.5 million registered users, 1.3 trillion tokens processed monthly, and an annualized revenue run rate above $70 million.

Together AI Raises $800M Series C at $8.3B Valuation

San Francisco-based Together AI, which builds infrastructure for running open-source AI models, secured $800 million in Series C financing led by Aramco Ventures at an $8.3 billion post-money valuation — another sign of continued investor appetite for AI infrastructure layers that compete directly with hyperscaler offerings.

Strategic Partnerships & Product Moves

Microsoft Launches In-House AI Models, Cutting Costs Up to 89% Versus OpenAI

Microsoft's AI Superintelligence team released a family of seven new in-house MAI models, including MAI-Thinking-1 (a 35B-parameter reasoning model), MAI-Image-2.5, MAI-Transcribe-1.5, and MAI-Voice-2. The models are now running across Bing, PowerPoint, OneDrive, Dynamics 365, Excel, GitHub Copilot, and Azure, and Microsoft says they cut inference costs by up to 89% versus OpenAI alternatives — a clear signal Microsoft is reducing its dependency on the OpenAI partnership while building out a differentiated enterprise AI stack.

OpenAI Rolls Out GPT-Live Full-Duplex Voice Model

OpenAI launched GPT-Live-1 and GPT-Live-1 mini on July 8, replacing the existing ChatGPT voice experience with a full-duplex model that can listen and speak at the same time. The model hands off complex tasks to GPT-5.5 in the background while keeping conversational flow intact — OpenAI's most significant voice AI upgrade to date, rolling out globally across iOS, Android, and ChatGPT.com.

1Password Enters AI Cost Management with Token Spend Tracking

1Password launched AI Spend and Consumption Management within its SaaS Manager platform, giving enterprises unified visibility into token consumption across Anthropic, Cursor, and OpenAI. The move positions 1Password — already a Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader for SaaS Management — to capture the emerging "AI FinOps" market as enterprises struggle to forecast and govern consumption-based AI pricing; Goldman Sachs estimates AI agent token consumption will grow 24x by 2030.

Slack Deepens Salesforce Integration with Agentic CRM Access

Slack launched a major integration connecting Slackbot, its built-in AI agent, to the entire Salesforce platform — including CRM data, Tableau analytics, Data 360 profiles, and third-party applications. Five years after Salesforce's $27.7 billion Slack acquisition, the update finally delivers on unified conversational CRM, letting users generate charts, pull CRM data, and run DocuSign workflows directly from chat messages.

Capital Markets

SK hynix Completes NASDAQ Uplisting

SK hynix (SKHY) completed its NASDAQ uplisting on July 10, 2026, pricing 177.9 million shares at $149.00. The stock closed its first day at $168.01 and currently trades at $154.03, a 3.38% return from the offer price — giving the South Korean memory chip giant greater access to U.S. capital markets amid surging HBM demand for AI accelerators.

Bending Spoons IPO Prices at $29, Closes Up 23.9%

Italian mobile app developer Bending Spoons (BSP) priced its IPO on July 1 at $29.00 per share across 58.0 million shares. The stock closed its first day at $40.50 and currently trades at $35.93, a 23.9% return from the offer price — a strong debut for European tech in U.S. markets.

OpenAI IPO Preparations Accelerate Toward $1 Trillion Valuation

OpenAI, valued at roughly $852 billion in its March 2026 funding round, is reportedly working with investment banks on confidential IPO preparations that could support a public valuation approaching $1 trillion. No public filing has been announced, but 73% of Polymarket bettors are wagering on a December 2026 IPO timeline, and CFO Sarah Friar has indicated the company plans to allocate roughly 30% of IPO shares to retail investors.

Editor's Take: The Infrastructure Consolidation Wave

Three forces are converging in enterprise technology this summer, and the deals from the past week make the pattern unmistakable.

First, AI infrastructure is consolidating vertically. Lattice Semiconductor didn't just buy a firmware company — it bought the control plane every AI server needs to boot, secure, and manage itself. Pair that with Microsoft's aggressive push to replace OpenAI models with its own MAI family at up to 89% lower cost, and National Grid's $1.75 billion bet on dedicated power for AI data centers, and the picture is clear: the AI stack is being rebuilt from silicon to electrons, and the winners will own multiple layers of it.

Second, "physical AI" is attracting venture-scale capital. Travis Kalanick's $1.7 billion Atoms round and Quantum Systems' $1.2 billion defense-autonomy raise mark a real shift in venture deployment. For years, AI investment flowed to models and applications; now it's flowing to robots, drones, mining automation, and power infrastructure — the "atoms" layer that software alone can't optimize. The roughly $3.4 billion Kalanick has raised suggests investors think industrial robotics is entering a platform phase similar to where cloud computing stood in 2010.

Third, AI cost governance is becoming its own software category. 1Password's move into token spend management, Venice AI's $1 billion valuation for privacy-preserving inference, and the broader rise of "AI FinOps" tools all point to the same problem: enterprises are deploying AI faster than they can measure it. Goldman Sachs' projection that AI agent token consumption will grow 24x by 2030 means the spend-management layer will matter as much as the compute layer itself.

The bottom line: We're watching the transition from AI experimentation to AI industrialization. The companies winning capital this month — semiconductor, robotics, energy infrastructure, or governance tooling — are all building the operational scaffolding that makes AI reliable, affordable, and scalable at the enterprise level. The model wars are interesting. The infrastructure wars are where the money is.

The Term Sheet is The CODEW's flagship deal intelligence series. The Term Sheet summarizes the most important technology business news, including mergers and acquisitions, startup funding, executive moves, partnerships, earnings, product launches, regulatory actions, and market developments. For corrections, tips, or partnership inquiries, contact the editorial team.

Sources: Crunchbase Megadeals Board | PitchBook | SEC EDGAR | Reuters M&A | Bloomberg Deals | TechCrunch Funding | VentureBeat | The Information