Power Systems Studies with Simulink and Simscape Electrical

This webinar explores how Simscape™ Electrical™ can be used to model and simulate power systems and power converters across different timescales. Using practical examples, we’ll move from quasi‑static studies such as 8760‑hour simulations to electromagnetic transient (EMT) simulations that include grid integration of inverter‑based resources.

The session demonstrates how simulation can be used to analyze system behavior and performance for modern, converter‑dominated power grids.

The models will be used to:

• Analyse faults and explore network reconfiguration.
• Assess system stability
• Evaluate code compiance

Click ‘Watch Now’ to explore this webinar.

The best iPhone charger depends on several factors. Are you topping off your battery on the go? Do you want to charge your iPhone as quickly as possible? Are you charging it overnight on your nightstand? The best gear recommendation is going to change with the situation. Luckily, the WIRED Reviews team tests iPhone chargers in the field all year long. There’s not a day that goes by that at least one of us is not assessing at least one iPhone charger. I’ve gathered up our favorite picks for every scenario.

Be sure to check out our related buying guides, like the Best Power Banks, the Best 3-in-1 Chargers, and the Best Wireless Chargers.

The Best iPhone Chargers

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

Anker

Nano 45W With USB-C Cable

This Anker charger is slick and has folding prongs so it’s easy to travel with, but the best part is that it can charge your phone at 40 watts (average is 20 to 27 watts). That means you can get up to 50 percent battery life in only 20 minutes. Not all iPhone models support charging this fast—it’s limited to iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, and iPhone 17 Pro Max—but you may as well future-proof your gear if you’re shopping for a wall charger, even if your phone can’t take full advantage of those speeds yet.

We do recommend the Anker Laptop Power Bank as our top-pick power bank, but if you’re only trying to top off your iPhone, this is a very reliable and neat-looking power bank. It’s svelte, smaller than a deck of cards, and can deliver 20 watts to two devices at once. Nimble also makes a slightly larger version, which has a larger capacity and can charge at up to 65 watts. Aside from the cool design featuring speckled colors and a lanyard loop, Nimble also uses bioplastics, recycled materials, and minimal packaging. A USB-C charger is included in the box.

Anker

MagGo Power Bank (10K) (Qi2)

This 10,000-mAh power bank can charge your device at up to 15 watts, but it’ll also charge older devices at a slower rate. It has a built-in kickstand and an LED display that lets you know how much power is left at a glance. It works in portrait or landscape modes. Be aware that it won’t be able to charge most phones fully more than once, but it’s hard to beat if you’re seeking wireless charging on the go. If you want a bigger capacity or faster charging, you don’t want MagSafe.

Belkin

3-in-1 Qi2 Charging Stand

The Belkin 3-in-1 can charge your compatible iPhone at 15 watts, plus your AirPods and your Apple Watch at the same time. The charging pad can be tilted to your preferred angle, including in landscape orientation if you want to watch a video or put your phone in StandBy mode. The USB-C cable is permanently attached, which you may or may not like. Check our best 3-in-1 chargers buying guide for additional picks.

Photograph: Louryn Strampe

Mophie

2-in-1 Wireless Charging Stand

I love a 3-in-1 charger as much as the next tech nerd, but sometimes they’re overkill. My Apple Watch battery usually lasts all day long, but I can chew through my older AirPods battery before my lunch break hits, and my iPhone battery might be depleted too, depending on whether or not I’m streaming Max Velocity off to the side. This 2-in-1 charger has been my steadfast desktop companion. Mophie makes another version that tops off your Apple Watch and iPhone instead of your headphones, which might be what you want if you’re rocking wired headphones or you’re making intense use of a walking pad throughout the day. There’s a 40-watt wall charger in the box—a rarity these days!—plus a USB-C cable that winds neatly into the base. It’s easy to adjust the angle of your iPhone as well, and I’ve found the base very sturdy. If you want to charge, but not necessarily all of the possible devices simultaneously, these might be what you seek.

Anker

Prime USB-C to USB-C Cable

Advertisement

This braided nylon USB-C cable has a durable exterior made from recycled plastic. The cable is rugged, with Anker promising that it can operate in temperatures ranging from negative 40 degrees to 176 degrees Fahrenheit. It’s backed by a lifetime warranty. It’s got a built-in cable management loop. It’s more than enough cable for your iPhone. Read our guide to the Best USB-C Cables for more picks.

Ugreen

USB-C to Lightning Cable

If your iPhone is still rocking the Lightning cable, this is gonna be way better than whatever shoddy cable Apple sent you. It’s durable and is Made for iPhone-certified, so you won’t have any problems getting it to work. It comes in 3-, 6-, or 10-foot lengths with a two-year warranty. Best of all, the exterior casing will stay intact, unlike what you’d probably get with Apple’s cables.

Demis Hassabis met South Korean President Lee Jae Myung at Cheong Wa Dae on Monday and signed an MOU with the Ministry of Science and ICT. The campus will be operational this year. Hassabis accepted a request to send at least 10 Google engineers from US headquarters. He presented Lee with a Go board signed by himself and Lee Se-dol.

Google DeepMind will open an artificial intelligence campus in Seoul, South Korea, the first facility of its kind in the world for the company, after Demis Hassabis met South Korean President Lee Jae Myung at Cheong Wa Dae on Monday. Kim Yong-beom, the presidential chief of staff for policy, confirmed the agreement.

The Science Ministry and Google signed a memorandum of understanding on the campus at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul later the same day, with Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyung-hoon and Hassabis in attendance. The campus is expected to open within 2026.

The MOU covers joint AI research in science and technology, AI skills development, and the responsible use of AI. Hassabis confirmed he would actively consider dispatching Google researchers to Korea.

Kim quoted him directly: “The CEO instantly accepted our request to send at least 10.” The campus is intended to serve as a hub connecting Google engineers with South Korean startups, researchers, and industrial companies. 

The Ministry of Science and ICT framed it as a key element of Korea’s “K-Moonshot” project, which brings together AI and science capabilities to address major national challenges. South Korea has stated its intention to become one of the world’s top three AI powerhouses alongside the United States and China.

The choice of venue and timing carries specific symbolic weight. The 2016 match between Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo and Korean Go grandmaster Lee Se-dol took place at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul, the same venue where Monday’s MOU was signed.

AlphaGo’s 4–1 victory over Lee Se-dol in March 2016 is widely credited with catalysing the modern wave of investment in artificial intelligence by demonstrating that deep learning could surpass human expert performance in a domain of extreme complexity.

Hassabis cited it explicitly during the meeting, noting that the AlphaGo match had “inspired many advances in AI, including its work in science like the AlphaFold system for protein folding.”

AlphaFold subsequently solved one of biology’s most important open problems: predicting the three-dimensional structure of proteins from their amino acid sequence.

The achievement led to Hassabis being jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2024. As a symbolic gesture, Hassabis presented President Lee with a Go board signed by himself and Lee Se-dol, marking the 10th anniversary of the match.

Hassabis also expressed interest in strengthening cooperation with major Korean companies including Samsung, SK Hynix, Hyundai’s Boston Dynamics, and LG, to start new joint projects.

Those four names span the full breadth of Korea’s technology industrial base: Samsung and SK Hynix in semiconductors and memory (both critical to AI infrastructure), Hyundai’s Boston Dynamics in physical AI and robotics, and LG in consumer and enterprise electronics.

The campus, combined with these industrial partnerships, suggests Google is positioning Korea not just as a market for its AI products but as a node in its global AI development and hardware supply chain.

The announcement is consistent with a broader pattern of major technology companies seeking government-endorsed AI campus arrangements in Asia-Pacific democracies. Microsoft’s A$25 billion investment in Australia, includes similar elements: an MOU with the national government, infrastructure expansion tied to a national AI strategy, and skills training commitments.

The Seoul AI campus adds South Korea to a list of countries, alongside Australia, Japan, Singapore, and the United Kingdom, where Google DeepMind and its peers are embedding their AI development presence at the government-partnership level, rather than purely through commercial market entry.

Hassabis also noted that countries like Korea, the UK, and Singapore urgently need to cooperate to build a broader framework for AI safety, pointing to the campus as part of a responsible AI agenda alongside the commercial and research dimensions.

The race to secure electricity for AI models has reached new heights: Meta has signed an agreement with the startup Overview Energy that could see a thousand satellites beam infrared light to solar farms that power data centers at night.

In 2024, Meta’s data centers used more than 18,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity—roughly enough to power more than 1.7 million American homes for a year—and its need for compute power is only increasing. The company has committed to building 30 gigawatts of renewable power sources, with a focus on industrial-scale solar power plants.

Typically, data centers turning to solar power must either invest in battery storage or rely on other generation sources to operate at night.

Overview, a four-year-old, Ashburn, Virginia, outfit that emerged from stealth in December, has a different solution: The company is developing spacecraft that collect plentiful solar power in space. It then plans to convert that energy to near-infrared light and beam it at sufficiently large solar farms—on the order of hundreds of megawatts—which can convert that light to electricity.

By using a wide, infrared beam to power existing terrestrial solar infrastructure, Overview thinks it can sidestep the technological challenges and safety and regulatory issues that bedevil plans to transmit power to Earth through high-power lasers or microwave beams. CEO Marc Berte says you’ll be able to stare right into his satellite’s beam with no ill effects.

The technology would increase the return on investment from building solar farms and reduce reliance on fossil fuels — if it can be deployed at scale.

Overview says it has already demonstrated power transmission to the ground from an aircraft, and is planning to launch a satellite to low Earth orbit in January 2028 to perform its first power transmission from space.

In today’s announcement, Meta said it signed the first capacity reservation agreement with Overview to receive up to 1 gigawatt of power from the company’s spacecraft, although it’s not clear if any money changed hands. Overview developed a new metric for this contract, megawatt photons, which is the amount of light required to generate a megawatt of electricity.

Berte expects to begin launching the satellites that would fulfill that commitment in 2030, with a goal of flying 1,000 spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit, a high orbit in which each satellite remains fixed above the same point on Earth. He expects each of the company’s spacecraft to provide power from space for more than 10 years.

Once in space, Berte says the fleet of spacecraft will be able to cover about a third of the planet, with an initial deployment that will reach from the West Coast of the United States across to Western Europe. As the Earth rotates below and customer solar farms enter evening and night, Overview’s spacecraft should boost their electrical generation with additional light from space.

Berte sees opportunity in combining both generation and transmission, with the flexibility to deliver power to solar farms wherever and whenever it is most valuable.

“There’s a big difference between being in any one energy market, and being in all of the energy markets,” Berte told TechCrunch.

The round is led by Headline, with new investors Bullhound Capital, Felix Capital, and Daphni. Valuation is undisclosed. Sereact’s vision language action models already run in BMW, Daimler Truck, and logistics customers. The $110M is more than four times the €25M Series A raised just 15 months ago.

Sereact, the Stuttgart-based AI robotics software company, has raised $110 million in a Series B round led by Headline, the international venture firm with offices in Berlin, San Francisco, and Paris. New investors Bullhound Capital, Felix Capital, and Daphni joined alongside several existing backers.

The company declined to disclose its valuation. Funds will be used to develop Sereact’s core AI model, one that “makes robots smarter and more adaptable to different tasks”, and to scale deployment across logistics, manufacturing, and, increasingly, humanoid robot platforms.

Sereact was founded in 2021 by Ralf Gulde (CEO) and Marc Tuscher (CTO), both former AI researchers, at the University of Stuttgart.

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The company’s technical approach is grounded in Vision Language Action Models (VLAMs): AI systems that combine computer vision, natural language understanding, and action planning into a single model, allowing robots to perceive their environment, interpret instructions, and execute physical tasks without requiring complex programming or environment-specific pre-training.

A robot picking a fragile object can, in principle, evaluate whether its planned grip will cause damage before its gripper closes.That capability is the meaningful differentiator in a market where most industrial robotics still operate on pre-programmed sequences that assume a controlled, predictable environment.

Warehouses, manufacturing floors, and logistics facilities are not controlled environments: objects arrive in unpredictable orientations, packaging varies, and edge cases are constant.

Sereact’s software-first approach, explicitly positioned against the hardware-first strategies of most robotics companies, is designed to make robots adaptable to this variation without requiring engineers to reprogram them for each new object type or layout change.

In Gulde’s formulation from the Series A announcement: “with our technology, robots act situationally rather than following rigidly programmed sequences.”

The commercial record behind the Series B is substantive. Customers include BMW Group, Daimler Truck, the Dutch e-commerce fulfilment company Bol, and logistics specialists MS Direct and Active Ants.

The deployment at automotive OEMs is editorially significant: BMW and Daimler Truck are not pilots or proof-of-concepts, they are production environments where the economic cost of a robot failure is measured in line stoppages.

Sereact’s technology reaching production at that tier of customer is the validation signal that distinguishes it from the large number of AI robotics companies still operating at the demonstration stage.

The funding trajectory makes the ambition of the round clear. Sereact raised $5 million in seed funding in 2023, €25 million (approximately $26 million) in a Series A led by Creandum in January 2025, and now $110 million in April 2026, a more than four-times step-up from the Series A in fifteen months.

Creandum’s Johan Brenner captured the investment thesis at the Series A: “most AI robotics companies are currently hardware-first. What sets Sereact apart is their software-first, foundational approach which means they have the potential to become the brain of any robot that requires vision and autonomous capabilities.”

That thesis, a software-first robotics intelligence layer deployable across any hardware platform, is essentially the same thesis that has made Mobileye valuable in autonomous vehicles and that Nvidia is pursuing through its Isaac robotics platform: the idea that the highest-margin position in robotics is not the robot itself but the intelligence running it.

The broader market context is accelerating. Humanoid robot deployments by Figure AI, Boston Dynamics, and Unitree are moving from controlled tests to commercial production at warehouse and manufacturing customers.

The global humanoid robot market, valued at under $1 billion in 2023, is projected to exceed $38 billion by 2030. Tesla’s Optimus production ramp, targeting volume output from July 2026, will require robotics intelligence software at scale.

Sereact’s explicit intention, stated at the Series A, to expand beyond logistics into humanoid robot platforms positions it to compete for that market. The $110 million Series B is the capital raise that makes that expansion credible.

Do you remember 3D TVs? They had a roughly six-year run from 2010 to 2016, a timespan that witnessed the demise of plasma TVs and the ascent of OLED TV technology. At that same time, there was a 3D movie boom in theaters, with nearly every major release getting a 3D-format screening, whether the content benefited from the addition of a third dimension or not.

Booms are usually followed by a bust, and these days most folks don’t even give a second thought to 3D movies. In an ironic twist, however, recent advances in display tech have created fertile ground for 3D viewing, particularly for watching 3D movies at home.

To 3D or not to 3D

I’ll admit to having geeked out on 3D during the last boom period, partly because I was regularly reviewing TVs at the time, and also because I had young kids who wanted to see the new animated movie releases, most of which were shown in 3D. Consequently, I spent many a weekend wearing 3D glasses in theaters, and also amassed a decent-sized Blu-ray 3D disc library for home viewing.

Looking back at that time, my recollection is that the 3D kinda sucked, both at the theater and at home. In theaters, it was the pre-laser projector era, when the brightness of a typical digital cinema projector was significantly lower than what you get in today’s venues. Put on 3D glasses, and the picture put out by that already brightness-challenged projector could look almost unacceptably dim.

Along with being dim, many movies shown in 3D weren’t actually shot using 3D cameras but instead converted to 3D. Not surprisingly, any 3D effect in these titles was minimal, or even accidental.

On the home front, the 3D TVs of the time had smaller screen sizes and were significantly less bright than today’s models. Today, a typical lineup from any TV brand ranges from 55 inches up to 98 inches, and peak brightness for higher-end models is in the 2,000-3,000 nits range. Back in 2015, screens generally maxed out at 65 inches, with 55 inches being a more common size. As for brightness, one of the last 3D TVs I measured, a Panasonic LCD model, topped out at a mere 132 nits.

(Looking back at that 2015 review, I was reminded that Netflix at one time streamed 3D content, and that I had actually watched a Wim Wenders 3D movie on the Panasonic. Crazy.)

Most home projectors in that earlier era also supported 3D, which let you watch 3D movies on 100-inch-plus-size screens. But while a bigger screen provided a better and more immersive experience, the brightness of pre-laser, lamp-based home projectors was much less than what you can expect today. To cite one example, the Sony VPL-VW350ES, a 4K SXRD projector that cost $10,000 when I tested it in 2015, had a specified 1,500 lumens brightness. Today, the Sony Bravia Projector 7, the company’s entry-level 4K laser model, lists for the same price and has a specified 2,200 lumens brightness, a near 50% increase.

Surveying the 3D landscape

Today, there are still some 3D theatrical releases, though most are kids-oriented animated movies like the recent Pixar hit Hopper and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. New Blu-ray 3D discs also continue to trickle out, with the latest entry in the Avatar franchise, Avatar: Fire and Ash, which is scheduled to ship in May 2026, being one notable release.

Anyone who owns a 3D-capable Blu-ray player and picks up Avatar: Fire and Ash on disc will find the 3D at home landscape much improved compared to the 3D boom years, and that comes down to one product category: projectors.

I recently got my hands on the Hisense PT1, a 3D-capable projector. The PT1 is an ultra short throw (UST) model designed for close placement to a screen and it supports screen sizes up to 150 inches. At $2,500, it’s affordably priced for a 4K UST projector, and its 2,500 lumens specified brightness exceeds that of considerably more expensive long throw projectors such as the Bravia Projector 7, a model that, despite its relatively high price, doesn’t offer 3D support.

Having the Hisense PT1 in-house gave me an opportunity to do something I’ve long been wanting to do: revisit my Blu-ray 3D disc collection to see how the experience holds up on a bigger, better, and brighter display than what I was used to in the old days. For my viewing, I paired the Hisense with a 100-inch Elite Pro AV Floor Riser Pro DarkUST 3 projection screen using an Oppo UDP-203 4K Blu-ray player as a source. Active 3D glasses were AWOL Vision DLP Link.

3D Revisited

To get the 3D TV party started, I selected three movies that I know were actually shot using a stereoscopic process and not upconverted to 3D: Avatar, Hugo, and Coraline. It didn’t hurt that these are all good movies – very good in the case of Coraline – and that I remembered them as having a pronounced 3D effect when I first watched them, both in the theater and at home.

Avatar is the king of modern 3D spectacles, and it was the disc I was most eager to check out on the Hisense projector. (The next chapter in the series, Avatar: The Way of Water, was also a 3D banger when I watched it at my local IMAX theater, and it looked great on an Apple Vision Pro headset that I briefly had on loan.)

To quickly sum things up, Avatar looked great on the system. The picture had strong contrast and bold color, especially in the luminescent forest scenes early on, and the 3D effects were even more pronounced than I remembered. There really was a sense of being there in the forest with those blue aliens. I found that brightness could have been better – I guess I got spoiled by watching Avatar: The Way of Water in optimal 3D viewing conditions – but the picture wasn’t so dim as to prevent me from enjoying it.

Hugo on the Hisense was another case where the 3D effects were more pronounced than I remembered – the picture was almost too three-dimensional. Unlike Avatar, Hugo is a good enough movie (it was directed by Martin Scorcese) that you don’t need 3D to fully enjoy it, so this is one case where I’d forego the third dimension to get the added picture brightness in 2D.

Coraline (2009) was the first stop-motion animated feature to be shot in 3D, and it received a 4K restoration and 3D theatrical re-release in 2024. Unfortunately, the remastered version didn’t make it to Blu-ray 3D, though a 4K disc version is available. 

Watched on the Hisense UST projector, my original Coraline disc lacked the 3D depth swagger of Avatar and Hugo, though there were some scenes that strongly benefited from the extra dimension, particularly the ones where Coraline crawls through the passage to and from the Other World. I had caught the remastered 2D version in theaters back in 2024, but watching it in 3D on a 100-inch screen at home was a compelling enough experience that I found myself sitting again through the entire movie.

Plowing through select scenes from the rest of my collection, I was surprised to see how good some of those discs, which I previously hadn’t been impressed by, looked on the big screen. Disney’s Tangled (which even has previews in 3D) and How to Train a Dragon both had subtle, yet impressive depth effects, and the IMAX documentary Deep Sea 3D was a visual delight, particularly the jellyfish segment. The Tsui Hark historical martial arts drama Flying Swords of Dragon Gate, in contrast, was almost too much in 3D given its non-stop over the top, gravity defying action scenes. And the same could be said for Pacific Rim, which had a near-wobbly look due to the shifting spatial perspectives.

Some things are better left in two dimensions.

A 3D TV revival?

The popularity of 3D movies may come and go, but the format will never completely disappear – it’s got way too much sticking power. What I don’t expect to see revived at any time in the near future is 3D TVs. Set manufacturers, and the viewing public, seem pretty much done with that concept.

Fortunately for 3D movie fans, 3D lives on in projectors. That’s not to say that all new projectors support 3D. In fact, Epson, Sony, and JVC have all dropped 3D support in their latest models. But other projector brands such as Hisense, Optoma, AWOL Vision/Valerion, and XGIMI are bullish on 3D, providing broad support for the format across their respective product ranges.

Looking back on my 3D experiment/nostalgia trip, the one thing I would have changed was to use a brighter projector. With a rated 2,500 lumens, the Hisense PT1 has good brightness for the price, and is a great value for an RGB laser projector. But the company’s flagship UST model, the Hisense L9Q, which is rated at 5,000 lumens, twice the brightness, would have been a better choice. The L9Q costs $6,000, and while that price might be high, it is apparently the cost of doing proper 3D business.

Where to buy:

Related Reading:

CNET just launched People’s Picks, a series of surveys where actual real-life humans like you vote for the products and services they use and can’t live without. For our first survey, we want you to weigh in on your favorite headphones and earbuds. We’ll choose winners based on your recommendations and publish a roundup featuring your top picks. So be sure to check back in a few weeks to see if your favorites made it to the list.

Watch this: AirPods Max 2 vs. Sony WH-1000XM6: Which Headphones Are Better?

09:43

Why we want to hear from you

Our writers and editors test hundreds of products each year, but your real-world experience with these devices is something we can’t replicate in our labs. You’ve used these headphones at the gym, on your commute to work and on long flights, and that perspective is invaluable. Your voice helps others know about the headphones or earbuds you love, too.

“I review a lot of headphones and earbuds for CNET, and there are plenty of great models from the top brands in this survey that I rate highly. I’m always curious about what models people ultimately choose and why, so I’m excited to get your feedback and learn the results of this survey,” says David Carnoy, CNET’s executive editor and headphones expert.

With our survey, we’ll collect answers from real-world users like you. The headphones and earbuds chosen through our 3-minute survey will be featured in our People’s Picks roundup of the top picks based on your recommendation.

Watch this: AirPods Pro Alternatives. Great Sound for Less, but Is That Enough? | All Things Mobile

10:51

Make your voice heard

Whether you swear by a pair of $25 earbuds or love a pair of high-end headphones, your pick counts. The survey takes just a few minutes to complete, and after we gather enough information, we’ll tally the results and publish the winners.

Not sure what to pick? Check out our list of the best headphones to revisit your favorites before voting.

The round amount is undisclosed. Backers include Nordic Makers, Emblem, the Lovable company itself, the Sequoia Scout Fund, and the Andreessen Horowitz Scout Fund. Lovable CEO Anton Osika personally endorsed the team. Atech lets users describe a hardware concept in natural language and receive a working prototype.

Atech, a Copenhagen-based AI hardware startup, has raised an undisclosed pre-seed round from Nordic Makers, Emblem, Lovable, the Sequoia Scout Fund, and the Andreessen Horowitz Scout Fund.

Founded by Vladimir Baran (CCO), Tomas Erik Harmer (CEO), and David Stålmarck (CTO), the company is building what it calls “vibe-engineering” for hardware, a platform that lets users describe a physical device concept in natural language and receive a working prototype, with all underlying technical complexity handled by the platform. 

The conceptual anchor is the parallel with what Lovable did for web application development. Lovable, the Swedish startup that allows non-developers to build full-stack web applications through natural language prompts, is valued at over $1 billion following rapid growth from its 2024 launch.

Anton Osika, Lovable’s CEO, backed Atech directly and provided the company’s most significant endorsement: “I am seeing the same patterns Lovable had but for hardware. I’m really excited to see Atech’s journey. The team is one of a kind.”

That institutional stamp of approval, from the founder of the software-vibe-coding category, is the most newsworthy element of the announcement and frames Atech explicitly as the hardware equivalent of an already-validated category.

The problem Atech is addressing is genuine and well-documented. Building a hardware prototype has traditionally required either years of specialised engineering expertise or significant capital to hire that expertise.

A developer can build and deploy a web application in a weekend using modern tools; the equivalent end-to-end hardware experience does not exist. This asymmetry has kept hardware innovation concentrated among a small group of specialists and within well-capitalised companies, while software development has been progressively democratised over the past decade through layers of abstraction that removed the need to understand compilers, memory management, or network protocols.

Harmer, Atech’s CEO, described the gap: “Software has an entire stack of tools that lets a teenager build an app in a weekend, hardware doesn’t, and we’re still working at the first level of abstraction. Atech is building the missing layers, so creating in the physical world can feel as fast and joyful as writing code.”

The investor syndicate is notable for a pre-seed round and warrants careful characterisation. The Sequoia Scout Fund and the Andreessen Horowitz Scout Fund are scout programmes operated by Sequoia Capital and a16z respectively, through which scouts, typically founders and operators in the funds’ networks, make small investments (often $5,000 to $100,000) in early-stage companies on behalf of the firm.

Scout fund participation does not constitute a direct investment by Sequoia or a16z in the traditional sense, and does not imply follow-on commitment from the parent firms. For Atech, the value of scout participation is primarily signalling, proximity to two of the world’s most prominent venture capital firms, rather than the capital amount itself.

Nordic Makers is a Copenhagen-based angel investor collective with deep ties to the Danish and broader Nordic startup ecosystem. Emblem is a European seed fund.

Lovable’s participation as a corporate backer, rather than just as an endorser, gives the round a strategic dimension: Lovable has a direct commercial interest in seeing hardware development democratised, as it would expand the surface area for Lovable-style interfaces.

The broader thesis Atech is operating within, which the company refers to as “Physical AI”, is gaining traction across the industry. Nvidia’s 2025 annual report framed Physical AI as its next major market opportunity: intelligent systems that sense, interact with, and act upon the physical world, including robotics, autonomous vehicles, drones, and industrial systems.

As these applications proliferate, the ability to rapidly prototype physical hardware becomes a competitive capability rather than a niche skill.

Whether a natural-language-to-prototype platform can genuinely close the hardware-software gap depends on how far the abstraction stack Atech is building can reach: PCB layout, component selection, firmware, and manufacturing considerations are all domains where the penalty for getting things wrong is a physical object that does not work, not a bug fix pushed in a pull request.

That is a harder problem than Lovable solved, and it is the question the company’s first customers will answer.