Tech entrepreneur set for $237 million windfall from semiconductor takeover

Business Insider

10 hours ago

Tech billionaire Weili Dai is in line for a $237 million windfall following a takeover deal for a London-listed semiconductor firm.
Dai is the second-largest shareholder of Alphawave IP Group with a stake of about 96 million shares, Bloomberg reported. Earlier this month Qualcomm agreed to buy the company for almost $2.4 billion in a deal due to close next year.
Bloomberg estimated Dai's net worth will be about $3.3 billion following the Qualcomm takeover. The Nasdaq-listed company is worth $166 billion.
Forbes estimated Dai's wealth at about $1 billion in 2019.
Dai and Alphawave did not respond to requests for comment.
Shares in Alphawave have risen 18% in the past month and 89% since the start of the year, valuing it at about $1.8 billion. The Toronto-headquartered company had been worth considerably more following its London IPO in 2021.
Dai's late husband, Sehat Sutardja, was executive director of Alphawave until his death in September last year. She had been an alternate director for Sutardja and became interim executive director following his death, as well as inheriting his stake.
Dai and Sutardja were cofounders of Marvell Technology in 1995, and she was president and director of the semiconductor company until 2016. In 2018, Dai cofounded MeetKai, an AI-enabled personalized conversational search company, and remains its executive chair. She also holds board roles at Lark Health and Astrana Health.
Shanghai-born Dai has a degree in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley and was previously a semi-professional basketball player in China before moving to the US with her parents.