Itera, a deep tech startup focused on electronics prototyping, emerged from stealth and announced $12 million in seed funding to commercialize its fluid circuit board technology, which enables engineers to test and modify electronic designs in real time. The funding round included participation from Upfront Ventures, Costanoa Ventures, and Colle Capital.
Itera developed what it describes as the world’s first fluid circuit board, using a proprietary combination of glass and liquid metal that enables circuit rewiring in under a minute. The company said the technology is designed to eliminate the lengthy prototyping cycles associated with traditional printed circuit board development, where engineers often wait two to six weeks for each design iteration.
According to Itera, electronics development teams collectively spend an estimated $50 billion annually on prototyping and hardware development. The company said its platform can reduce iteration cycles by as much as 1,000x, compressing development timelines from months into days.
Itera’s platform differs from simulation software because it utilizes actual components with real electrical behavior rather than virtual approximations. The technology also allows engineers to probe internal circuit nodes beyond standard exposed test points, providing deeper visibility into hardware performance during testing.
The company operates through an Electronics-as-a-Service model, where customer designs are assembled using real components on Itera’s multilayer substrates at secure U.S.-based testing facilities. Customers can remotely modify and test both hardware and software configurations before finalizing designs for manufacturing.
Itera said its initial production capacity has already been reserved by a top five global automotive OEM and defense neoprime companies. The company added that a major hyperscaler and several chipset manufacturers are actively evaluating the platform through live demonstrations.
KEY QUOTES:
“Software developers have been able to write code, test, and iterate in real time for decades. Itera makes real-time design and iteration possible for hardware too. Hardware has always been hard because it is permanent. Changing it requires time and money. Itera is making hardware easy. For the first time ever, an engineer can change a circuit and test it again before their coffee gets cold.”
AJ Cooper, CEO And Co-founder, Itera
“I’ve worked with hardware companies for 15 years and there have been almost no innovations in how to massively reduce the time to test and iterate physical PCB designs. Itera brings an AWS-like solution to testing hardware and this can dramatically lower costs for startups and incumbents alike.”
Mark Suster, Managing Partner, Upfront Ventures
