Dulo, the hardware-design AI startup co-founded this year by Sebastian Thrun and Adrian Aoun, has raised a $130 million seed round from a group of tech executives and startup funds, with no lead investor named. The Information first reported the round on October 29, and Aoun confirmed it on X the same day.
The company says it is building foundation models for hardware design. Its backers include former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, John Doerr and Ram Shriram, SiliconANGLE reported, which added that Dulo did not disclose its valuation.
Aoun's post is the founders' own account of the round. It gives the amount, calls the round a seed and lists the backers by name. Thrun, whose X profile lists him as Dulo's CEO, replied on X that he was "so excited" to be with Aoun and "our many new investors."
Post on X by @adrianaoun
Earlier this year Sebastian Thrun and I co-founded Dulo on a mission to create an Engineering Superintelligence, building foundation models for hardware design. Props to @theinformation for scooping our $130m seed round - we appreciate the support from @Benioff, @johndoerr, @ericschmidt, @yurimilner_ , Ram Shriram, @RachelJHolt at @constructcap , @sacca and @claydumas at @lowercarbon , @bling0 at @blingcapital , @davidtisch at @BoxGroup , @topherc at @svangel , @katie_haun at @HaunVentures , @kevinweil and @elizabeth at @ScribbleVC , and many others...
Who backed the round
A SaasBuzz count of the post finds 14 people named. Five are named without a firm: Benioff, Doerr, Schmidt, Yuri Milner and Shriram. The other nine are named at seven funds: Construct Capital, Lowercarbon, Bling Capital, BoxGroup, SV Angel, Haun Ventures and Scribble VC. Aoun added "many others" without naming them, and no one in the post is described as leading.
The names are not new to the founders. Shriram sat on the board of Forward, the primary care company Aoun co-founded in 2016, TechCrunch reported in 2023. Forward closed all of its clinics and shut its app in November 2024.
No Form D filing for Dulo appeared in a search of SEC EDGAR at 8:15 a.m. ET on October 31.
What Dulo says it is building
Dulo has no product page yet. Its site, dulo.com, carries three lines: "Manufacturing at lightspeed," "Foundation models for hardware design" and "Built by leaders from Waymo, Google Brain, and SAIL," followed by "Coming soon." Thrun listed robotics among Dulo's focus areas in August, SiliconANGLE reported, and it is not yet clear which design tasks the models will handle.
Both founders come from Google. Thrun co-founded Google's X lab, led the X program that became Waymo and helped set up Google Brain, according to SiliconANGLE. Aoun sold Wavii, a natural language startup, to Google in 2013 in a deal TechCrunch put at "north of $30 million."
What the round means for AI in hardware engineering
Investors have already put large rounds into software that speeds up how physical products are designed and tested. Those companies sell to engineers today; Dulo is raising on its founders' records before it has shown a product.
Company | Round | Date |
|---|---|---|
Dulo | $130M seed | Oct. 2026 |
Vinci4D | $250M Series B | Oct. 2026 |
PhysicsX | $300M Series C | June 2026 |
Source: Aoun on X; SiliconANGLE; PhysicsX.
PhysicsX raised $300 million in a Series C led by Temasek in June, at a valuation of about $2.4 billion, for software that predicts how designs behave physically. Vinci4D, whose simulation software is aimed first at the thermal behavior of chips, raised $250 million at a $1.5 billion valuation on October 6, SiliconANGLE reported.
By SaasBuzz's calculation, Dulo's seed is 2.8 times the $46 million Vinci4D raised across two earlier rounds, as reported in December 2025, and 43% of PhysicsX's Series C.
The founders have not said publicly how they will spend the money, how many people Dulo employs or when its first model will ship. Aoun's post gives the goal only: what he calls "an Engineering Superintelligence."
