Canberra-born technology company Liquid Instruments has received $28.5 million in funding to expand its product line and introduce novel services that connect lab measurements directly to the cloud.

An innovator in precision software-defined instrumentation, Liquid Instruments was started by a team of physicists and engineers at The Australian National University (ANU).

Its new funding is led by Acorn Capital, with the round including participation from new investors, including Lockheed Martin Ventures and Powerhouse Ventures, in addition to existing investors, Spirit Super/ANU Connect Ventures, MA Growth Ventures, Significant Capital Ventures, and Boman Enterprises. The funding enables Liquid Instruments to accelerate its growth plans, expand its product line and introduce novel services that connect lab measurements directly to the cloud, and brings Liquid Instruments' total funding to more than $50 million.

The team's research on precision laser measurements has been adapted to produce a new product called Moku:Lab, an advanced electrical test equipment platform.

The new funding follows record growth for Liquid Instruments, driven by strong demand for the company's new products Moku:Pro and Moku:Go. Customers in research and education, government labs and industrial segments - including aerospace and defense, semiconductor, LiDAR and quantum computing - drove a 4x year-over-year sales increase.

Liquid Instruments CEO and co-founder Professor Daniel Shaddock said that this injection of capital will supercharge the company's ability to revolutionise the test and measurement industry.

"Our innovative software-first approach provides clear advantages over traditional hardware-based solutions, and this funding strongly positions us to lead this critical industry transformation," he said.

Liquid Instruments' Moku product line offers the world's most powerful and flexible software-defined instrumentation platform, harnessing the processing power and reconfigurability of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) to combine multiple instruments into one compact and accessible device. These product offerings include Moku:Go, a complete lab solution for engineers and students to actively test designs and projects, and Moku:Pro, an integrated platform for the most demanding research and engineering applications.

"We are focused on enhancing cloud integration features for our products and scaling production of Moku:Go to help millions of undergraduate engineering students around the world unlock their full potential," said Professor Shaddock.

"Mokus will continue to receive new features via frequent over-the-air updates enabling new solutions in key commercial industries."

Robert Routley, CEO, Acorn Capital, said that Liquid Instruments' Australian-developed software-defined approach is the manifestation of an ambitious plan targeting a vital market that has suffered from a deficit of innovation and imagination.

"We see tremendous potential for their platform to continue to grow and evolve, benefitting more industries over time," he said.

"Liquid Instruments is well positioned to execute on its expansion strategy and disrupt the test and measurement sector and lead the industry through the much-needed transition from hardware to software."