Faraj Aalaei, an Iranian American immigrant and a 40-year veteran of the communications industry, is currently the Founding Managing Partner at Candou Ventures. As an entrepreneur Faraj has raised several hundred million dollars for his semiconductor companies from private and public investors, executed several M&A deals and as CEO taken two previous start-ups, Centillium and Aquantia through IPO. His last IPO, Aquantia, was acquired by Marvell Semiconductors where Faraj stayed on as Executive VP in charge of Marvell’s Networking and Automotive businesses, a billion dollar revenue segment and the largest business at Marvell. Prior to joining Marvell and Aquantia, Faraj was the Co-Founder CEO and the force behind Centillium’s successful track record as a leading innovator of high performance, cost effective semiconductor solutions for broadband access networks. Under his leadership, Centillium went from seed financing to NASDAQ IPO in 3 years, the fastest ever for a semiconductor company. An industry pioneer and holder of multiple patents, Aalaei has spent the last four decades at the forefront of technology innovations – from helping develop the world’s first optical communication system and the first broadband cable modem at AT&T Bell Laboratories to DSL solutions for broadband connectivity Centillium and most recently communication technologies for Data Centers and Autonomous Driving applications in automobiles at Aquantia.
Aalaei holds an honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering from Wentworth Institute of Technology where he also received his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, MSEE from University of Massachusetts and MBA from University of New Hampshire.