Cadstrom, an AI-based expert system that enables electrical engineers to design electronic devices correctly on the first try, announced that it raised $6.8 million in seed funding. The funding round was led by Bison Ventures and included participation from Innovation Endeavors and AI2 Incubator, which previously invested $650K in a pre-seed round.
Launched in 2023 by Margot Blouin and Scott Bright, Cadstrom builds AI tools enabling electrical engineers to create devices that work correctly on their first attempt. Core to Cadstrom’s approach is its proprietary Sigma Engine, which utilizes a first-principles understanding of physics, electronics, and generative AI to identify mistakes while automatically validating complex designs—cutting development costs, accelerating GTM timeline, and shortening design cycles up to 66% by eliminating respins.
With the electronics industry growing, so has the demand for printed circuit boards (PCBs), which are the foundation for modern electronic products. Even though PCBs have grown increasingly complex, their design remains a largely manual process prone to errors and delays. The average printed circuit board undergoes three “respins,” or reconfigurations of its design, due to unanticipated electrical design mistakes, requirements changes, or other manufacturing realities–adding over $100K to development costs, which could delay a PCB’s production timeline by a whopping six months. Supply-chain issues and inconsistent component availability often exacerbate this expense and delay. Moreover, field failures and recalls cause severe damage to market confidence and product competitiveness.
Legacy verification tools are time-consuming and ineffective. So electrical engineers say it is faster and easier today to plan for respin iterations than waste time and effort attempting complete validation with the solutions currently on the market.
Bright previously cofounded Synapse Product Development (now a part of Capgemini Invent) and has three decades of experience building electrical products for NASA, Disney, and Philips. And Blouin, who previously served as founding product manager for Microsoft’s Azure Quantum, spent 7 years researching and developing the Sigma Engine, aiming to address the lack of tools assisting in design verification—a frustrating market gap she discovered while building electronic devices.
Cadstrom will also expand its design and partner testing program, which includes several market-leading product development and design consulting agencies in the US, to directly serve professional engineers.
KEY QUOTES:
“We founded Cadstrom to address the reality that most electronics designs require several time-consuming revisions, and the problem is getting worse as electronics, AI, and connectivity becomes increasingly ubiquitous. Our vision is one where every engineer can achieve robust designs on their first build and get to market faster. This funding represents a critical milestone for our team, and we’re excited to put the capital to work to further develop our automated verification tools that detect and address the most common issues that electrical engineers face.”
– Margot Blouin, Founder and CEO of Cadstrom
“Cadstrom’s approach is bringing unprecedented progress to the Testing, Inspection, and Certification market. Margot and Scott built the product they desperately needed as hardware engineers: By improving one of the most tedious parts of PCB development, Cadstrom helps engineers be more productive and bring validated hardware to market at remarkable speeds. This is in stark contrast to tools seeking to replace engineers with ineffective AI.”
– Tom Biegala, Founding Partner at Bison Ventures
