Liquid Instruments Secures $70 Million to Fund Expansion and Integration of AI into Product Suite
- Liquid Instruments has secured $70 million in a Series C funding round, bringing the company’s valuation to more than $400 million.
- The company was founded in 2014 by Professor Daniel Shaddock, who previously worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
- I had a cushy job for the rest of my life if I wanted just to run down the clock.
Liquid Instruments has secured $70 million in a Series C funding round, bringing the company’s valuation to more than $400 million. The Canberra-based deep-tech firm, which develops software-defined test and measurement equipment, intends to use the capital to accelerate its expansion and integrate artificial intelligence into its product suite, Forbes Australia reported.
From gravitational wave research to commercial instrumentation
The company was founded in 2014 by Professor Daniel Shaddock, who previously worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Shaddock, a physicist, transitioned to the private sector after identifying that the complex measurement systems used in gravitational wave detection could be adapted for broader industrial use. He initially viewed a career in academia as his permanent path, later describing his move into business as a significant departure from his expectations. Few would have expected Shaddock to pursue a career in physics at all, as he admits he was more interested in football than science during his youth. Instead, he was driven by a competitive nature and a desire to solve difficult, meaningful problems.
I had a cushy job for the rest of my life if I wanted just to run down the clock. But that didn’t particularly appeal to me.
Daniel Shaddock
Liquid Instruments’ core technology, the Moku platform, replaces multiple laboratory instruments with a single, reconfigurable system. While the company’s first device replaced three instruments, Shaddock notes that current hardware can now replicate 17 different functions through software updates. This versatility has driven adoption among companies including NVIDIA, Apple, Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, and BYD.
Scaling a global-first operation
Shaddock adopted an international growth strategy from the company’s inception, establishing a presence in the United States rather than focusing exclusively on the Australian market. The company currently employs approximately 100 people and generates tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue. According to Shaddock, the decision to prioritize a global-first approach was necessary to compete in the competitive tech industry.
The $70 million injection of capital follows a decade of development and is intended to address a persistent challenge for the firm: having more potential applications than available resources. The company plans to use the new funding to deepen its investment in AI. The goal is to enable engineers to generate custom test instruments by providing descriptive prompts, allowing the software-defined hardware to adapt its functionality automatically. Despite the successful fundraising, Shaddock has noted that the transition from a secure academic life to entrepreneurship was a process he initially found intimidating.
The role of AI in future measurement
The integration of AI represents the next phase of the company’s product roadmap. Shaddock identifies the software-defined nature of the Moku platform as the primary advantage for this transition, noting that the architecture already contains the necessary hooks for AI to influence instrument performance at a fundamental level. By allowing engineers to create instruments on demand, the firm aims to increase efficiency across sectors like quantum computing, semiconductors, and electric vehicle production.