ai-hardware-engineer
(2)
Pratap Ranade
Pratap Ranade is the CEO and co-founder of Arena (Arena Physica), a New York startup building Atlas, an AI hardware engineer grounded in applied physics that helps semiconductor, aerospace, automotive, medical-device and defense companies design and test physical hardware. A Stanford and Columbia-trained physicist who left a PhD to join McKinsey, he previously co-founded Kimono Labs (acquired by Palantir) and led engineering and machine learning at Enigma. Arena raised a $30M Series B in April 2025 and counts AMD, Bausch & Lomb and Anduril among its partners.
Flux
Flux is a browser-based, AI-native hardware design platform that turns text prompts into manufacturable printed circuit boards. The San Francisco company calls its product an 'AI Hardware Engineer' and is rewriting how electronics get designed by combining an electronic CAD environment with an agentic copilot that researches parts, draws schematics, lays out boards, and prepares files for fabrication.