Key Takeaways:
- Trace, founded by Howard engineers Ayo Adekoya, Jeff Allo, and Olu Afolabi, recently launched out of stealth with an AI-native PCB design tool.
- CEO Ayomide Adekoya and his cofounders built Trace around a purpose-built text format that AI models reason over natively and is interoperable with industry-standard tools.
- Under CEO Ayomide Adekoya, Trace joined the Printed Circuit Board Association of America alongside Raytheon, Lockheed, TTM, and Sanmina, as the DoD pushes domestic PCB production.
Every smartphone, every robot, and every medical device starts the same way. An engineer opens a datasheet, measures pad dimensions by hand, builds a footprint from scratch, routes every trace, clicks through a Gerber export wizard, and hopes the file matches the fab house’s tolerances.
The infrastructure powering this work has barely changed in two decades. While software engineers have ridden a wave of AI copilots, instant linters, and one-click deployments, the people designing the hardware inside our most advanced products still use tools that were old when most of them entered the field.
Trace, an AI-native software company that recently launched out of stealth, is the bet that this is about to change. Founded by three Howard University engineers with prior experience at Apple, Meta, and NVIDIA, Trace automates the full printed circuit board design workflow, from concept and component selection through layout, routing, and manufacturing handoff. The premise is straightforward. Hardware deserves better infrastructure, and AI is finally capable of providing it.
Engineers Who Walked Away From Big Tech
Ayo Adekoya, Jeff Allo, and Olu Afolabi met as engineering students at Howard University. Before founding Trace, they assembled the kind of resumes most early-career engineers spend a decade chasing. Adekoya worked at Apple and Meta, where he helped build robotic surgical hardware that flew on a NASA RockSat program. Allo and Afolabi came through NVIDIA and Captron with ASIC-level design experience.
At 20 years old, Adekoya leads the company as co-founder and CEO. He left a coveted role at one of the largest technology companies to build Trace, a decision he frames as a matter of conviction rather than risk.
“The gap between modern developer tooling and hardware design tooling is embarrassing,” Adekoya wrote in a recent white paper laying out the company’s thesis. “I have seen both sides of this. At Apple and Meta, I worked with world-class developer tooling. On the hardware side, the workflow still looks like it did decades ago.”
That conviction is reinforced by the company’s backing. Trace operates under the legal entity WishEDA Inc. and is supported by Founders, Inc., the early-stage firm known for backing technical founders building deeply infrastructural products.
An AI-Native Approach to a Problem Most Tools Ignore
What separates Trace from the broader wave of AI features in design software is the foundation the company built. Most attempts to bring AI into engineering software layer a chat interface on top of legacy applications, asking models to click through interfaces or interpret screenshots. Trace took the opposite approach.
The team built purpose-built representations called trace_sch for schematics and trace_pcb for layouts, structured text formats that AI models reason over natively. The architecture is interoperable with industry-standard tools, including Altium, KiCad, and Cadence, which keeps designs portable and engineers free from lock-in.
The result is a multi-agent system that handles the full PCB workflow. Agents parse datasheets, suggest components, check distributor availability across JLCPCB, LCSC, DigiKey, Mouser, and PCBWay, generate schematics, place and route boards, run design and electrical rule checks, and produce manufacturing-ready Gerber files.
Pricing follows tiered plans spanning individual engineers through enterprise teams. Trace counts 302 paying customers, 477 daily active users, more than 4,000 signed-up engineers, and over 65 boards designed end-to-end and sent to manufacturing.
At the Center of America’s Hardware Reshoring
The launch coincides with a structural reset for U.S. hardware. Trace is now a member of the Printed Circuit Board Association of America, one of the only design-software companies in an organization that otherwise includes Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, TTM, and Sanmina. The Department of Defense is pushing domestic PCB production toward a 2027 mandate, and the FCC’s December 2025 decision to add foreign-produced unmanned aircraft systems and their critical components to its Covered List falls within that broader reshoring push.
Industry credibility deepened with Mike Brown, a 36-year PCB design veteran from Lockheed Martin, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and the Naval Research Laboratory, who joined as a design partner, helping shape the roadmap.
Trace also works with professional PCB design firms that each serve dozens of OEM clients, and holds manufacturing partnerships with PCBWay and Pikkolo Assembly. The thesis Adekoya and his cofounders return to most often is that the design layer is the control point for the entire hardware supply chain, where components are sourced, and boards are built.
The market context reinforces the timing. Robotics startups attracted approximately $14 billion in funding during 2025, with Figure AI reaching a $39 billion valuation. Every humanoid robot, autonomous vehicle, and AI inference accelerator funded in this cycle will require custom motor controllers, sensor arrays, and compute boards.
For Trace, the longer-term ambition stretches beyond the immediate product. The company sees the design tool as the front door to the full hardware supply chain, with one-click ordering, pre-validated manufacturing checks, and supply chain visibility built into the design environment. If early traction is any indication, the engineers and defense primes who shape America’s hardware have been waiting for this for a long time.
About Trace
Trace is the AI-native operating system for hardware design and manufacturing. Using voice prompts and natural language, users describe their circuit board requirements, Trace generates designs in real time, and sends the design to a manufacturing partner, without having to leave the design environment – all in one tool. Founded by three Howard University engineers with backgrounds at Apple, Meta, and NVIDIA, Trace reduces design iteration cycles from weeks to days, enabling faster product development across consumer and industrial robotics, defense, and hardware startups. To get started, visit www.buildwithtrace.com
