Hardware startup CircuitHub raises £21m led by Plural
This article covers CircuitHub, a hardware startup, which has raised £21m in a growth funding round to expand its automated electronics manufacturing platform and roll out more of its factory Grid across Europe and the US. The funding aims to shorten prototyping and small-batch production cycles for hardware teams and to support wider onshore manufacturing capacity.
CircuitHub, a hardware startup, has raised £21 million in a growth funding round to expand its automated electronics manufacturing platform and roll out more of its factory “Grid” across Europe and the US. The funding aims to shorten prototyping and small-batch production cycles for hardware teams and to support wider onshore manufacturing capacity.
Why it matters
Electronics development is often slowed by long lead times and supply-chain fragility. CircuitHub’s model targets the large portion of projects that never reach mass volumes — the single prototypes and small runs that account for roughly 95% of electronics projects — by offering a faster route from design file to production-ready board.
For companies building robots, satellites or autonomous vehicles, being able to iterate hardware in days rather than months can materially reduce development risk and cost. The move also ties into a broader push in Europe and the US to rebuild domestic manufacturing capability and reduce reliance on distant supply chains.
Inside the product
Engineers upload PCB designs to CircuitHub’s online platform and place orders. Automated robotics, computer vision and AI then assemble the boards at the Grid, a 5,000-square-foot factory, before components are shipped globally. The system is designed to handle everything from single prototypes to batches of 10,000 units across multiple designs simultaneously, with automated quality monitoring intended to speed cycles and cut manual intervention.
Since launching its first production facility in Massachusetts, CircuitHub says it has delivered more than 2 million boards, placed over 133 million parts and served 20,000 engineers. The company plans to expand the Grid model, hire more engineers and broaden the platform into a full-service electronics manufacturing offering.
Who are the investors?
The round was led by Plural.
The funding will be used to expand CircuitHub’s automated factories across Europe and the US, grow its engineering team and extend the platform into end-to-end electronics manufacturing.
In the announcement, Sten Tamkivi, Partner at Plural, said:
What CircuitHub is doing is fundamental. Andrew and the world-class CircuitHub team are changing the unit economics of the entire industry. As robotics, AI and advanced hardware accelerate, their combination of automation, software and data is making electronics manufacturing as fast, flexible, and accessible as writing code. This is also about resilience and sovereignty, ensuring that Europe and the US can design, build and iterate on critical technologies locally. It’s the kind of infrastructure shift that creates billion-dollar outcomes and will supercharge progress across physical AI, from robotics to space, energy and defence.
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Founder perspective
In the announcement, Andrew Seddon, Founder & CEO at CircuitHub, said:
Today, hardware companies face a tough choice: either spin up their own vertically integrated manufacturing from scratch, or rely on a legacy Western supply chain that's been decaying for years. CircuitHub is the alternative: providing remote access to a cutting-edge factory through your browser or your AI agent. Just as software companies share cloud compute, hardware companies can now share our Grid.
The bigger picture
CircuitHub’s approach speaks to two converging trends: increased automation in manufacturing and political momentum to onshore critical production. The company points to an electronics manufacturing services market on track to reach $1 trillion, driven in part by demand for flexible, lower-volume production tailored to iterative hardware development.
For UK and European founders, investors and policymakers, the deal is another data point in the argument that resilient local manufacturing infrastructure can accelerate hardware innovation. If CircuitHub can scale its Grid model across multiple regions, it could change how startups prototype and produce physical products — and influence how domestic supply chains are rebuilt.
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