# Alon Webman

> Alon Webman is the co-founder and CEO of Chain Reaction, an Israeli semiconductor company building purpose-built chips for encrypted computation, Bitcoin mining, and privacy-preserving AI. Before Chain Reaction, he co-founded Mellanox Technologies in 1999 and spent nearly two decades there, rising to VP-level roles before NVIDIA acquired Mellanox for $7 billion in 2020. A Technion graduate, Webman is now betting his second act on making fully homomorphic encryption practical at scale - a technology that would let clouds compute on data they can never see.

- **Role:** Co-Founder & CEO at Chain Reaction
- **Organizations:** Chain Reaction Ltd., Mellanox Technologies, Intel, Nexus
- **Nationality:** Israeli
- **Education:** B.Sc. Electrical Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
- **Known for:** Co-founded Mellanox Technologies (1999), which was acquired by NVIDIA for ~$7 billion in 2020, Raised $160 million total for Chain Reaction across multiple rounds, Built Chain Reaction to 110+ employees including talent from Nvidia, Mellanox, Intel, TSMC, and Israeli intelligence

## Career timeline

- **1994** — Engineering role at Intel
- **1996** — Engineering role at Nexus
- **1999** — Co-founded Mellanox Technologies in Yokneam Illit, Israel
- **2009** — Promoted to VP of Engineering for Switch Products at Mellanox
- **1999-2018** — Held multiple VP roles at Mellanox: VP Silicon Engineering, VP Business Development Technology, VP Engineering Switch Products
- **2018** — Departed Mellanox after 19 years
- **2019** — Co-founded Chain Reaction with Oren Yokev; became CEO
- **2020** — NVIDIA acquired Mellanox for approximately $7 billion
- **2023-02** — Chain Reaction raised $70M Series C led by Morgan Creek Digital, total funding $115M
- **2023-05** — Launched EL3CTRUM product line - industry-leading Bitcoin mining ASICs
- **2024** — Chain Reaction ranked 4th on Calcalist's Most Promising Startups list; presented at Mind The Tech NY
- **2025-10** — Launched EL3CTRUM E31 - 3nm ASIC Bitcoin miner platform with air, hydro, and immersion cooling variants

## Achievements

- Co-founded Mellanox Technologies (1999), which was acquired by NVIDIA for ~$7 billion in 2020
- Raised $160 million total for Chain Reaction across multiple rounds
- Built Chain Reaction to 110+ employees including talent from Nvidia, Mellanox, Intel, TSMC, and Israeli intelligence
- Achieved million-times performance improvement over CPU/GPU for homomorphic encryption workloads with the 3PU chip
- Ranked 4th on Calcalist's Most Promising Startups 2024 list
- Launched EL3CTRUM E31 - one of the most efficient Bitcoin mining platforms at 9.9 J/TH (hydro variant)
- Operated in stealth for 6 years while raising $115M before emerging publicly in 2023

## Latest updates

- **2025-10** — Launched EL3CTRUM E31 platform with 3nm ASICs; volume shipments planned Q3 2026
- **2024-01** — Chain Reaction ranked 4th on Calcalist Most Promising Startups list
- **2024-01** — Presented at Calcalist Mind The Tech NY 2024 conference
- **2023-05** — Launched EL3CTRUM Bitcoin mining product line
- **2023-02** — Raised $70M Series C, emerged from stealth, total funding $115M

## Links

- Website: https://chain-reaction.io
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alon-webman-7a700a5/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/chainreactioni0
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrm9hpVo504
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Alon-Webman/1380312357

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/alon-webman
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-27