Circuit's $30M Raise for "AI for the Factory Floor"

Austin-based Circuit, co-founded by former Silicon Labs CEO Tyson Tuttle, has raised $30M from angel investors to build AI software for manufacturing and service operations.

It's one of Texas' largest angel rounds, and Circuit's bet is clear: the next productivity leap won't come from more dashboards. It'll come from turning technical know-how into step-by-step guidance that any tech, rep, or operator can use in the moment.

The bottleneck they're attacking is expertise.

Manufacturers and service orgs make hundreds of high-stakes decisions every day: configuring equipment, quoting jobs, installations, and troubleshooting. But the actual knowledge is scattered across manuals and legacy systems, or locked in the heads of veterans. With retirements accelerating and the labor gap widening (Deloitte estimates up to 1.9M manufacturing jobs could go unfilled by 2033), "knowing how" is becoming the scarcest resource in the building. Circuit co-founder Andrew Peters points to the urgency: even Ford has said it can't fill thousands of factory-floor roles paying six figures.

Circuit's approach is to convert documentation into guided workflows, so teams can execute without needing a 20-year expert standing over their shoulder. The platform ingests technical manuals, schematics, CAD files, and "exploded views," then plugs into existing systems like ERPs, CRMs, and quoting tools.

A sales rep or technician can describe the job requirements, and Circuit helps translate configuration logic and compatibility rules into an answer they can act on.

Early customers include Austin-based Four Hands (consolidating terabytes of product information to improve support) and Culligan, with use cases spanning complex industrial distributors where quoting mistakes can be painfully expensive.

The money behind it is serious. The angel round includes names like Jim Breyer, Charlie Amato (SWBC), and Lew Cirne (New Relic). Circuit says it will use the $30M to expand the product roadmap and build go-to-market, starting with regional sales hires. The team is roughly 30 people working out of a house in Clarksville.

"AI for industry" wins when it's tied to distribution and a painful, measurable workflow. Circuit is selling fewer errors, faster quotes, and onboarding new hires in weeks instead of months.

If you're building in Austin, this is the blueprint: start where stakes are high, decisions are frequent, and expertise is evaporating, then package institutional knowledge into a product that scales.