[snops]

I think the most recent surge is due to LLMs, the only way to (easily) apply them is to have some form of code like textual representation of your problem domain so "circuits as code" is the obvious way to wedge them into electronic engineering.

Kicad also makes it easier to make such startups as it has an open file format with several different free viewer tools and lots of content (schematics/footprints). If that ecosystem didn't exist I don't think you would see as many of these startups around, but with that you can launch one of these tools within a initial VC funding