# AI tools for the chips your AI runs on

> Why we backed Hardware Intelligence — AI tools for the chips your AI runs on.

URL: https://firstdegree.io/insights/hardware-intelligence

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October 2, 2026
# AI tools for the chips your AI runs on.
Why we backed Hardware Intelligence.
By Kaan Anit
Every AI model runs on a chip.
Every chip has to be verified before it ships.
And verification takes up to 70% of the entire chip design process.
## The problem.
When a chip test fails, engineers need a recording of every internal signal: a waveform.
Recording it makes a run 3 to 8 times longer and creates files of tens of gigabytes. So almost no one records by default. When a test fails, engineers rerun the simulation, losing hours to days.
## What they build.
WaveZip captures waveforms up to 500x smaller, with 200x less overhead.
It is written in pure SystemVerilog, works with any compliant simulator, and runs fully on premise.
Wave, their debugger, beats frontier models on industry chip debugging benchmarks.
## The team.
Athreya Anand, CEO, was a tech lead at Google, where he led AI efforts across teams. Before that: AWS Inferentia and Tesla. Master's in Machine Learning and AI from Georgia Tech.
Rishov Sarkar, CTO, has a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Georgia Tech. He developed simulators for AMD's AI Engine accelerator and worked on compilation flows at Siemens EDA.
Hardware Intelligence is part of Y Combinator's Summer 2026 batch, based in San Francisco.
## Why we backed them.
When intelligence becomes abundant, everything changes. Including the hardware underneath it.
We back founders who deeply understand the problem, see what new intelligence makes possible, and can build it. Athreya and Rishov have worked on both sides: the AI, and the chips it runs on.
## Thank you.
Thank you, Paul Johnson and Ananya Kapoor at Flex Capital, for introducing us.
## Can you help?
Athreya and Rishov want to talk to chip designers and to people who lead chip design and verification teams.
If that's you, or someone you know, reply to us and we'll make the introduction.
Proud to join the journey.
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FirstDegree — access-first investor in AI-native companies at pre-seed and seed. https://firstdegree.io