17 years later, Singh still can\u2019t talk about the details of that business (at least, not to a reporter). But the deal kicked off a seminal episode in his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t a lot of money, but enough that I thought I\u2019d sold out,\u201d said Singh, who grew up in London. \u201cI was 14 and I had to work out what I wanted to do with my life. So, every day for two weeks, I thought about it really deeply. I did nothing else. And I basically came to a set of conclusions that have driven my life ever since: There are two universes, one in which you\u2019re born, and one in which you\u2019re not. The delta between the two, the positive difference, is how much good you\u2019ve done as a human\u2014and you want to maximize that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
This perhaps conjures a vision of an exceptionally serious Englishman, so it\u2019s worth being clear: In conversation, Singh is as effervescent and optimistic as his conclusion suggests. And though entrepreneurial triumph spurring intense reflection is a story I\u2019ve heard before, I\u2019ve never heard it from someone who was so young at the time. Singh ultimately went on to be a mechanical engineer, starting his career at giants like BAE Systems<\/a> and BP<\/a>. Pretty quickly, he had the acute sense that hardware engineering was in a moment of intense evolution, as the processes of the past bumped into a fast-encroaching future.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to design and invent stuff, and what I saw in the industry was that the tools, processes, and workflows\u2014the fundamental approach to how we design hardware\u2014haven\u2019t fundamentally changed since the space race,\u201d Singh told Fortune. \u201cBut the products we\u2019re building have gotten massively more complex. Software now basically drives every element of every component. And there was a disconnect between the products we were designing and the approach to design.\u201d<\/p>\n Singh founded startup Flow Engineering in 2023, building on a tool he\u2019d previously developed to help design rocket engines. Today, Flow helps companies like Rivian, Joby Aviation, Astranis, and Radiant solve complex engineering challenges and facilitate agile, iterative hardware development. At the center of Flow\u2019s platform is the idea that requirements\u2014the well-defined needs a physical hardware product must fulfill as it\u2019s being built\u2014need to be a \u201cliving, breathing nervous system\u201d that evolves, rather than something rigid.\u00a0<\/p>\n The startup has now raised a $23 million Series A, led by Sequoia, Fortune has exclusively learned. Odyssey Ventures, Unity\u2019s David Helgason, and Stripe\u2019s Patrick and John Collison also participated in the round. In a striking vote of confidence, Sequoia managing partner and steward Roelof Botha will join Flow\u2019s board. To Botha, Flow is at the forefront of a seminal, broad shift: Hardware isn\u2019t separate from software at this point, but rather increasingly defined by its intersection with software. Galvanized by onshoring trends, technological change, and sheer geopolitical necessity, there\u2019s right now a growing hardware ecosystem of companies, processes, and specializations. There\u2019s a parallel to the evolution of software, which went from vertically integrated companies to horizontal ecosystems, where developers are building their own tools to accelerate their most important projects.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe software industry benefited, because it was software developers themselves that built their own tools,\u201d said Botha. \u201cLike GitHub, a great tool for software developers, built by software developers.\u201d As hardware and software development merge, Botha said that new companies like Flow and Nominal (another Sequoia-backed hardware engineering-focused platform) are uniquely positioned as they\u2019re emerging and gaining traction.<\/p>\n As we head into the final months of 2025, U.S.-China relations are tense, and there\u2019s an overwhelming sense that, when it comes to manufacturing capabilities, China has the edge on the U.S., said Singh: \u201cIt\u2019s effectively a new space race, and China is in pole position,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you look at the pace of innovation and the pace of growth, they\u2019re actually at a higher trajectory than the U.S.\u201d (Some estimates suggest that, by 2030, China could be responsible for 45% of global manufacturing, while the U.S. falls to an 11% share.)<\/p>\n The question, then: Is it over? Has China simply won? \u201cI think the ace we have up our sleeve is safety,\u201d said Singh. \u201cI\u2019d get in an Archer. I would get on a Falcon 9. I would not get on China\u2019s rocket,\u201d he said, referring to U.S.-made electric air taxi Archer and SpaceX\u2019s reusable rocket.\u00a0<\/p>\n For Singh, the stakes of this business are existential and tie back to the teenage promise he made himself about how he\u2019d spend his life.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf we are successful, our impact to humanity is that we get to Mars faster,\u201d said Singh. \u201cWe decarbonize the atmosphere faster. Humanity\u2019s most important problems right now are problems of the physical world. It\u2019s not just AI. AI needs to be in the real world to be able to have an impact\u2014and that\u2019s all going to be built on Flow.\u201d<\/p>\n See you tomorrow,<\/p>\n Allie Garfinkle Joey Abrams curated the deals section of today\u2019s newsletter. Subscribe here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Venture Deals<\/p>\n – Epiminds<\/a>, a Stockholm, Sweden-based marketing operating system, raised $6.6 million in seed funding. Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round and was joined by EWOR, Entourage, and angel investors.<\/p>\n – Strawberry<\/a>, a San Francisco-based agentic AI integrated browser, raised $6 million in funding. General Catalyst and EQT Ventures led the round and were joined by Lovable, Supabase, and Hugging Face.<\/p>\n – Pimly<\/a>, a Chicago, Ill.-based system designed to serve as a layer connecting product, commerce, and CRM functions, raised $2.3 million in funding. High Alpha led the round.<\/p>\n Private Equity<\/p>\n – Recognize acquired a majority stake in Security Risk Advisors<\/a>, a Philadelphia, Penn.-based cybersecurity services firm. Financial terms were not disclosed.<\/p>\n People<\/p>\n
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Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com<\/a>
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