📝 Astrus raises $8M

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Astrus has raised an $8 million seed round, led by Khosla Ventures with participation from 1517 Fund, Drive Capital, Alumni Ventures, RiSC Capital, MVP Ventures, and Juniper Networks co-founder Pradeep Sindhu, to automate one of the last stubborn bottlenecks in semiconductor design: analog circuits. While much of chip development has moved toward automation, analog layout remains a painstaking, manual process that can cost hundreds of millions and take months as engineers place and route transistors by hand; Astrus’ AI-powered software instead uses reinforcement learning and physics simulations to generate thousands of potential layouts quickly, cutting costs and potentially enabling entirely new architectures. Founded in 2023 by Brad Moon, formerly of ApplyBoard, and Zeyi Wang, whose research underpinned Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo, Astrus is still in R&D but is already in talks with Tier-1 semiconductor firms and expects its first paid pilots in early 2026. The 13-person company plans to double its team with this funding while maintaining its base in Canada—pushing back against the trend of Canadian semiconductor startups being acquired or relocating south—with ambitions to build a lasting global player in advanced chip design.

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