Most office buildings are full of copper Ethernet cable that tops out at one gigabit. Aquantia's chips let that same wire carry 2.5, 5, or 10 gigabits. It was cheaper than pulling new cable, and Wi-Fi access points and data centers needed the speed. Aquantia also put its chips into cars, where networks were getting faster too. When it filed to go public in 2017, it was a rare venture-backed chip company headed for Wall Street.

Ten Gigabits on Old Wire

Aquantia was founded in San Jose in 2004 to build the physical-layer chips, called PHYs, that send Ethernet signals down a cable. Running 10 gigabits over ordinary copper took heavy signal processing. Aquantia's engineers worked out how to do it at lower power than rivals. The company sold to makers of switches, servers, and network cards. Later it pushed multi-gigabit speeds for Wi-Fi gear and for networks inside cars.

Nine Dollars to Marvell

Aquantia priced its IPO at $9 a share in November 2017 and listed on the NYSE as AQ. The company kept growing its automotive and Wi-Fi business and won design slots in new multi-gigabit networking gear. In 2019 Marvell Technology agreed to buy Aquantia for $13.25 a share in cash. The deal closed that September, and Aquantia's shares left the NYSE.

Cover: Waterfall (The Cascade), Ferdinand Kobell. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a cascade of water (Aqua, data flowing).