Vibe Coding for Hardware Startup Atech Announced its Pre-Seed Round

Atech, an AI hardware startup, led by Tomas Harmer, David Stålmarck, Vladimir Baran, and the team, has raised a pre-seed round with participation from Nordic Makers, Emblem, Lovable, Sequoia Scout Fund (Sequoia), and Andreessen Horowitz Scout Fund (A16z).

Atech is building a platform that makes hardware development accessible to everyone, removing one of tech’s highest knowledge barriers.

The Problem

Building a hardware prototype has traditionally required years of specialised expertise or significant investment in engineering talent. As a result, many ideas remain on paper, and hardware innovation has largely been confined to a small group of specialists.

The Solution

Atech introduces “vibe-engineering” for hardware. Much like modern AI tools have made software creation accessible to non-developers, the platform enables hardware concepts to be described in natural language and transformed into working prototypes within minutes, with underlying technical complexity managed seamlessly.

While software development has been democratised over the past decade, hardware has remained difficult to access. That gap is now being closed, making physical creation as intuitive and flexible as building a web app.

“Software has an entire stack of tools that lets a teenager build an app in a weekend; hardware doesn’t, and work is still happening 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.” — Tomas Harmer, CEO of Atech.

Why Now

The rise of Physical AI, intelligent systems that sense, interact with, and act upon the real world, is accelerating demand for hardware expertise at every level. As this shift unfolds, the ability to build and control physical systems is set to become a foundational skill rather than a niche capability.

In this context, hardware is being reimagined as programmable, adaptable, and user-driven, much like software. Atech is building the tools required to enable that transition and make physical creation broadly accessible.