Software-defined test and measurement startup Liquid Instruments Pty. Ltd. today announced that it has raised $50 million in new funding to accelerate product development, scale up its artificial intelligence-powered platform and expand go-to-market in aerospace, defense and semiconductor verticals.

Founded in 2014 with offices in San Diego and Canberra, Australia, Liquid Instruments sells reconfigurable test hardware that collapses what was traditionally a rack of separate instruments into a single software-defined device.

Liquid Instrument’s main product line, called Moku, is aimed at people wrestling with the hard end of electronics work, including quantum computing rigs, aerospace payloads, defense systems and semiconductor research.

The hardware that powers the platform is built on field-programmable gate arrays, with a software layer that lets a user change what the box pretends to be. The company claims that the setup means that less money needs to be spent on dedicated instruments, less bench space is taken up in a lab and there is room to write custom digital signal processing when nothing on the shelf quite fits.

The flexibility offered works well in areas like quantum research, where the experiment often changes faster than any vendor’s catalog.

Liquid Instruments says it has thousands of users globally across technology companies, research institutes, quantum startups and defense primes. Customers include national laboratories and university physics departments, with the hardware also used in production test environments at electronics manufacturers.

The Series C funding round was co-led by Keysight Technologies Inc. and the Australian government’s National Reconstruction Fund Corporation. Alongside the investment, Keysight is entering into a commercial arrangement with Liquid Instruments for joint development of artificial intelligence-driven instrumentation.

The National Reconstruction Fund Corporation’s participation is also noted as reflecting the Australian government’s push to back sovereign capability in critical technology sectors.

“Keysight has long set the standard for precision, innovation and trust in its solutions for the most complex engineering challenges, and its investment is a strong validation of our approach,” said co-founder and Chief Executive Daniel Shaddock. “As systems grow more complex, our users need more flexible, AI-driven tools, and this new partnership with Keysight will accelerate that shift.”

The new funding takes the total raised by Liquid Instruments to more than $100 million.

Photo: Liquid Instruments