Simantic Launches Firmware Simulation Layer Letting AI Agents Test Code Without Hardware

Simantic, a Y Combinator F26 startup founded by former firmware engineers from Neuralink and Tesla, is building a simulation platform for validating firmware without physical boards. The founders say AI agents can write firmware quickly, but testing it has traditionally required flashing physical devboards and using older, cumbersome tools. Their product offers virtual devboards controlled through a single API call, an AI firmware code reviewer that uses simulation as a verification engine, and a CI/CD pipeline that checks firmware against a simulated microcontroller on every commit. Users reportedly include teams building flight controllers, electric vehicles, robotics, and satellites, and the company says it helped an early-stage space startup test satellite firmware at a fraction of the cost and time of buying development hardware. The founders also explain that they initially built a wrapper around the open-source emulator Renode before finding its development pace and .NET-based performance limiting.