Former SpaceX engineer raises $25.5M to automate circuit board design with AI

Former SpaceX engineer Sergiy Nesterenko has raised $25.5 million in Series B funding for Quilter, his AI-powered circuit board design startup that aims to automate the traditionally labor-intensive process of creating printed circuit boards. The Los Angeles-based company is now valued at around $200 million and uses physics-based training rather than human designs to teach its AI system, positioning it to address growing demand amid hardware manufacturing shifts and designer shortages.

What you should know: Quilter’s AI transforms circuit board design from a months-long manual process into an automated system that can generate layouts from rough sketches.

• Traditional circuit board design involves using a mouse and keyboard to draw thousands of wires and connections, a process that can take up to three months due to its error-prone nature.
• Quilter’s software allows human designers to input a rough sketch, then AI automatically finalizes the design and adds details for manufacturing.
• The startup differentiates itself by training its AI on the laws of physics—how heat moves and signals travel—rather than flawed human designs.

Why this matters: The circuit board design industry faces significant labor shortages and cost pressures as demand for U.S. electronics manufacturing increases.

• Human designers cost around $100 per hour and many are reaching retirement age, creating bottlenecks in production processes.
• Nina Achadjian, a partner at Index Ventures, noted the world is experiencing a “hardware renaissance” with increased pressure from the Trump administration to manufacture electronics domestically.
• Printed circuit boards power every electronic device from phones to LED lights to fighter jets, making design efficiency critical across industries.

The big picture: Quilter represents a broader trend of AI companies targeting specialized technical workflows that have remained largely manual.

• The company uses reinforcement learning to improve its performance and claims it doesn’t rely on external large language models.
• Nesterenko’s inspiration came from his SpaceX experience, where he witnessed firsthand the cumbersome nature of circuit board design after a technical error caused one of his boards to catch fire.

What they’re saying: Nesterenko explained the frustrating nature of traditional design processes to Forbes.

• “Usually you find out you screwed up somehow and then you repeat,” he said about conventional circuit board design.
• “The website does it all automatically and then in a much faster time returns a result which they can then inspect, review and modify.”

Other AI developments: Several major AI industry moves and challenges emerged this week.

• OpenAI announced users can directly access external apps like Spotify, Zillow, and Expedia through ChatGPT, as the company now serves 800 million weekly users and 4 million developers.
• The company’s TikTok-style video app Sora 2 topped the App Store but raised copyright concerns with AI-generated videos of popular characters like Pikachu and SpongeBob.
• OpenAI signed a multibillion-dollar deal with AMD for 6 gigawatts worth of AI chips starting in 2026, potentially challenging Nvidia’s dominance.

AI accountability issues: Consulting giant Deloitte plans to issue a partial refund to the Australian government after delivering a report filled with AI-generated errors.

• The Department of Employment and Workplace Relations paid Deloitte $290,000 for an independent IT system review that contained fabricated quotes and references to nonexistent research studies.
• A revised version disclosed that OpenAI Azure was used to write the report, highlighting ongoing challenges with AI hallucinations in professional settings.