Allowing hardware engineers to team more effectively, Flow Engineering raises $8.5 million seed round

Flow Engineering, a UK-based hardware engineering software company, today revealed it has raised $8.5 million in seed funding.

The round is led by EQT Ventures with further contributions from Backed VC and angel investors; David Hegelson (content creator Unity,) Charlie Songhurst (ex-Microsoft), Kyle Parrish (Figma) and Matt Clifford (Entrepreneur's Fund.)

Businesses everywhere want agile collaboration tools that allow dispersed workforces to manage projects in tandem. It is no longer enough to be bouncing e-mails to and from colleagues, workers are demanding software that's tailored their use case and their needs.

Flow Engineering's platform aims to enable agile collaboration methods for hardware engineering teams, saving time spent collating computer design models, databases and component diagrams.

Described as hardware engineering's answer to "GitHub", Flow's software is intended to iterate complex hardware builds faster by enabling engineers to constantly test, validate and verify designs.

The research team comes from a background in aerospace engineering and F1 speed racing, and the software's already been deployed by unnamed automotive and aerospace clients.

Founding CEO Pari Singh made the Forbes under 30 list and previously served oil and gas major BP as a mechanical engineer, working on BP's rotating offshore equipment off the coast of Azerbaijan.

Singh said he believed collaboration software was "big business" for manufacturers just now given the effects of supply chain bottlenecks, as well as spiralling input and energy costs.

He added: "Engineers know how much time is wasted due to cross-functional collaboration.

"It is slowing down the delivery of technologies that will make our world a better place.

"Flow exists to help ‘new age’ engineers drastically cut timelines and costs - we want to knock two years off nuclear fusion delivery timelines, enable engineers to put a new electric vehicle on the road 18 months quicker and take 20% off the cost of a carbon reduction project." 

Alastair Mitchell, partner and co-head at EQT Ventures, argued the field of "new age" engineering was set for a "golden era of investment".

"Everywhere you look, modern hardware engineering teams are building the future. The amount of value to be created is vast and the problems to fix are urgent," Mitchell said.

"“Software has seen vast investment since the early 2000s, but since around 2010, serious money has been flowing into hardware - industries like electric vehicles, aerospace and medical equipment. I expect to see this continue, with a particular focus on clean technology."