Pradeep Sindhu

Venture Advisor Mayfield

Last Reviewed: September 18, 2026

Executive Summary

Pradeep Sindhu has twice tried to move a fundamental piece of computing from software into silicon, and the first attempt reshaped the internet. Juniper Networks, which he founded in February 1996 after eleven years as a researcher at Xerox PARC, built routers whose forwarding path lived in purpose-designed chips rather than general-purpose processors — an approach that made carrier-scale IP networking economically viable and that the industry subsequently adopted wholesale. The second attempt was Fungible, co-founded in 2015 with former Apple software engineering chief Bertrand Serlet, which set out to do the same for the data centre by inventing the data processing unit: a chip to handle storage, networking and security work that was consuming an increasing share of server CPU cycles. Microsoft bought Fungible in January 2023 and Sindhu went with it, working on silicon for Azure. In May 2026 he joined Mayfield — the firm that had led Fungible’s Series A nine years earlier — as a Venture Advisor, working with founders on semiconductors, systems and the physical infrastructure underneath the AI build-out.

Career Highlights

• Founded Juniper Networks in February 1996, serving as founding chief executive and Chairman, and later as Vice Chairman, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Scientist.
• Active in the inception, design and development of virtually every product Juniper shipped from 1996 through 2015, per Mayfield’s account; Juniper went public on 25 June 1999.
• Co-founded Fungible, Inc. in 2015 with Bertrand Serlet, and is credited with inventing the data processing unit as a category.
• Fungible raised a $32 million Series A in February 2017 led by Mayfield Fund with Walden Riverwood Ventures and Battery Ventures, and a $200 million Series C in June 2019 led by the SoftBank Vision Fund with Norwest Venture Partners.
• Served as Fungible’s chief executive until July 2021, then as Chairman, through Microsoft’s acquisition announced in January 2023 at a reported $190 million.
• Joined Microsoft after the acquisition, described as a Technical Fellow and Vice President of its Corporate Silicon Group, working on custom AI silicon and data centre networking.
• Spent eleven years in Xerox PARC’s Computer Science Laboratory on VLSI design tools and high-speed interconnects; that work influenced Sun Microsystems’ first high-performance multiprocessor family, including the SPARCcenter 2000 and SPARCserver 1000.
• Member of the National Academy of Engineering and named inventor on more than 200 patents.

Professional Journey

Sindhu was born in Varanasi in 1953 and took a B.Tech. in electrical engineering at IIT Kanpur in 1974, a master’s in electrical engineering at the University of Hawaii in 1976, and both a master’s and a doctorate in computer science at Carnegie Mellon, completing the Ph.D. in 1982 under Bob Sproull. He joined Xerox PARC’s Computer Science Laboratory and stayed eleven years, working on VLSI design tools and on high-speed interconnects for multiprocessor systems — research that fed directly into the architecture of Sun Microsystems’ first high-performance multiprocessor family, the SPARCcenter 2000 and SPARCserver 1000.

In February 1996 he left research to found Juniper Networks, alongside Dennis Ferguson and Bjorn Liencres. The premise was that the internet’s growth would outrun software-based routers and that the forwarding plane had to be rendered in custom silicon. He was the founding chief executive, handing the CEO role to Scott Kriens later that year and taking the technical leadership instead — a deliberate and unusually clear-eyed decision about where his contribution lay. Over nearly three decades at Juniper he held the titles of Chairman, Vice Chairman, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Scientist, and by Mayfield’s account was involved in the inception, design and development of essentially every product the company shipped between 1996 and 2015. Juniper’s IPO came on 25 June 1999.

Fungible was the second act, founded in 2015 with Bertrand Serlet. The argument was structurally identical to Juniper’s: as data centres scaled, an increasing fraction of general-purpose CPU cycles was being burned on data-centric work — storage, networking, virtualisation, security — that a purpose-built processor could do far more efficiently. Sindhu named that processor the data processing unit. Mayfield led the $32 million Series A in February 2017, and the SoftBank Vision Fund led a $200 million Series C in June 2019. He stepped back from the chief executive role in July 2021, succeeded by Eric Hayes, and stayed on as Chairman. The DPU thesis proved right in general and hard to monetise in particular: hyperscalers built their own, and Microsoft acquired Fungible in January 2023 for a reported $190 million, folding the team into its data centre infrastructure effort.

Sindhu joined Microsoft with the acquisition, where he has been described as a Technical Fellow and Vice President of the Corporate Silicon Group, advising on custom AI chips for servers and next-generation data centre networking. In May 2026 Mayfield announced him as a Venture Advisor, closing a loop with the firm that had first funded Fungible, and pointing him at the founders building the semiconductor and systems layer of the AI era.

Education

Carnegie Mellon University

Ph.D., Computer Science, 1982

Carnegie Mellon University

M.S., Computer Science

University of Hawaii

M.S., Electrical Engineering, 1976

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur

B.Tech., Electrical Engineering, 1974