In 2018, Matthias Wagner was leading a 100-person Burning Man camp called Hotel California.
8VC partner Francisco Gimenez remembers it well—not just because it was the first time he met Wagner, but because of what Wagner had built.
“Matthias was the leader of the camp,” said Gimenez. “He led the creation of a three-story hangout structure they’d designed out of these interlocking Lincoln logs. It was open-sourced—you could see the plans on GitHub. Matthias wasn’t starting a company, he was still at Facebook. But you could tell the guy could run something incredible.”
It would be one year before they crossed paths again, this time at a mutual friend’s wedding. Wagner wasn’t pitching anything—but he’d been watching the rise of design software firm Figma, and he couldn’t believe no one had built something like it for the massive electronics market. Wagner has built all kinds of electronics, from sound systems to modular off-grid solar systems.
“Around 2020, Figma had its first success, and you suddenly saw you could build a CAD tool in the browser,” says Wagner, who’s jocular and German. “I realized: The software to make electronics hasn’t improved in my lifetime. And clearly, today, we have better ideas about building software that’s easier to use, more collaborative, more automated. Clearly, we can use machine learning, too. The supply chain now also exists in my Oakland backyard, I can make whatever I want. I don’t need to be Lockheed Martin or Apple.”
And Gimenez was sold, writing the first check into Flux, as Wagner named his startup, in 2019. Now, after years of searching for product-market fit, Flux has seemingly found its path: The startup just passed one million sign-ups and has raised $37 million in capital, Fortune has exclusively learned. This includes a January $27 million 8VC-led Series B, with participation from Bain Capital Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures, and Outsiders Fund. Outsiders Fund led the company’s August $10 million Series A, and BCV co-led.
Wagner emphasized that electronics are especially difficult and slow to design because the tooling is decades behind. And while the most professional, traditional engineers remain tied to legacy software, the global DIY electronics space is gigantic (some estimates suggest it could even be a $1 trillion market). And even the professionals are limited.
“The number of electrical engineers is actually on the decline, with fewer and fewer people graduating,” said Gimenez. “That being said, the amount of hardware in our lives is exploding dramatically—every phone in front of me, the vending machines outside this room. It’s a massive space that’s impossible to diligence because it’s all about how much hardware is being created.”
Flux took about five years to get to revenue, a fact both Wagner and Gimenez are upfront about. And Wagner believes that Flux will ultimately be part of a change that’s only just materializing: that we will be able to vibe code not only apps, but full-fledged devices.
“We’re heading towards a complete flip of everything,” Wagner told Fortune. “If you can prompt an iPhone‑class device into existence, why would anyone still go to Amazon and spend two hours looking for something? Everything changes if you can just describe something, make it, and if that thing is cheaper than buying something off the shelf… Our hope is that electronics will eventually be as democratized and empowering as software is today.”
See you Monday,
Allie Garfinkle
X: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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VENTURE CAPITAL
– Encord, a London, England-based data infrastructure company for physical AI, raised $60 million in Series C funding. Wellington Management led the round and was joined by Y Combinator, CRV, N47, Crane Venture Partners, Harpoon Ventures, Bright Pixel Capital, and Isomer Capital.
– Tamarind Bio, a San Francisco-based no-code, AI-powered platform for drug discovery, raised $12 million in Series A funding. Dimension Capital led the round.
– Elly, a New York-based AI-native hiring platform, raised $8 million in seed funding. Sorenson Capital led the round, and was joined by Atomic and Next Wave Capital.
– JetScale AI, a Montreal, Quebec-based AI-powered platform for autonomous cloud infrastructure optimization, raised $5.4 million in seed funding. The Business Development Bank of Canada and Diagram ClimateTech Fund led the round, and were joined by Telegraph Ventures, Fondaction, Mavrik, Cycle Momentum, and Spring Impact Capital.
PRIVATE EQUITY
– Summit Partners invested $122 million in Stay22, a Montreal, Quebec–based content monetization company.
– Trive Capital acquired Rolfson Oil, an Addison, Texas-based fuel, oil, and lubricant distributor. Financial terms were not disclosed.
OTHERS
– Dubai Aerospace Enterprise agreed to buy Macquarie AirFinance Ltd., a San Francisco-based global aviation lessor, for $7 billion.
EXITS
– Morgan Stanley Capital Partners acquired Security 101, a West Palm Beach, Fla.-based security integration company for businesses, from Gemspring Capital. Financial terms were not disclosed.
SPAC
– Legato, the SPAC for Einride, a Stockholm, Sweden-based electric vehicle startup, raised $113 million in financing. EQT Ventures participated and was joined by others.
