From left: Andrew Peters, co-founder and chief product and revenue officer; Øivind Loe, co-founder and chief technology officer; Tyson Tuttle, founder and CEO; Jackie Padgett, co-founder and chief human resources officer; and Matt Weiss, co-founder and CFO of Circuit, an artificial intelligence startup for manufacturers that raised $30 million in an angel investment round. Tuttle is the former CEO of Silicon Labs.
An Austin startup co-founded by an alumnus Silicon Laboratories CEO Tyson Tuttle secured one of the largest angel investor rounds ever in Texas by betting that artificial intelligence can help alleviate a growing labor shortage in manufacturing.
The company, Circuit Inc.has raised $30 million from a group of Texas investors to help commercialize its AI platform.
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After move away from one’s role with local chipmaker Silicon Labs in 2022, Tuttle said he’s not really sure what his next move will be. He took some time off and started thinking about what it would be like to take a startup from “zero to 100.”
“When I left Silicon LabsI said I was going to get out of semiconductors and move more into software,” Tuttle said. “And actually, AI is software. This is something of a new, high-performance computing paradigm that will transform many different aspects of society and the economy.
He teamed up with Andrew Peters, former head of growth at Silicon Labs, and other co-founders to create an AI platform for manufacturing and services companies struggling with an aging workforce.
Industry workers with decades of experience are retiring, but there aren’t enough new workers entering the field to replace them. The Manufacturing Institute and Deloitte estimate that the loss of expertise could leave up to 1.9 million unfilled manufacturing jobs by 2033.
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That’s where Circuit comes in. Its AI-powered platform is designed to help entry-level workers gain the knowledge once held by seasoned employees.
“Veterans, going back 40 years, can show up at a job site, smell the air, smell the oil and know exactly what’s wrong,” Peters said. “None of what we’re doing is replacing these people. It’s more about how do we hire these one- to five-year-olds that companies are just now hiring, how do we get them to 20 years of knowledge as quickly as possible?”
Over the past 18 months, Tuttle and Peters have built the Circuit platform and grown its team. In July, the company acquired Austin startup Molecula, a database technology company, to secure “vital” talent, Tuttle said.
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Circuit employs about 30 people who work out of a converted house just west of downtown and plans to expand. He declined to say how many employees the company plans to hire, but said it will soon need a larger space.
“We’re going to outgrow the house here soon,” Tuttle said. “We don’t know where yet, but it will be close to the city center. I was in Silicon Labs when we moved into our buildings downtown, and there are a lot of spaces like that opening up.
The startup’s current clients include a water treatment company Culligan International and Austin-based furniture designer Four hands.
The Circuit’s record-breaking angel round was supported by several notable Texas businessmen: Austin billionaire venture capitalist Jim Breyerfinancial services company SWBC Chairman Charlie Amato, Marble Falls resident and tech veteran Lew Cirne, Dallas-based Energy Transfer CEO Tom Long and Houston-based energy investor Gary Petersen.
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IonQ founder and CEO Niccol De Masi, investor Gary Rieschel and Miami businessman Craig Robins also invested in the round. Angel rounds are early-stage funding, usually done by high-profile investors, to help startups finalize their products and gain traction in the market.
“It’s a big deal for us, it’s our door-opening situation,” Peters said. “We’re focused on a very important problem. This lack of manufacturing jobs is currently overshadowed by layoffs in the software sector, but we need to solve this problem. We want to be a leader in this area and it’s important for us to do that in Austin.”