Manufacturing Startups funded by Y Combinator (YC) 2026

Tenet Industries is building low-cost, mass-manufacturable strike drones. We have developed our own HW and SW platform optimized for automated manufacturing, enabling hyperscaling of production across multiple strike categories (FPV, fixed-wing, shahed-type, missiles). We're using design-for-automation and first principles to reimagine how a defense product is developed and manufactured. Thereby lowering the cost and filling the arsenals of the west. Our first product is a kamikaze quadcopter.

Prototyping.io is a manufacturing intelligence platform that understands mechanical designs, identifies manufacturability issues early, provides actionable insights and delivers custom mechanical parts (CNC machining, sheet metal, 3D printing, injection molding, etc.) with faster lead times, lower cost, and high quality.

We build AI agents that automate discovery for industrials products, in particular mid-size machinery. Say goodbye to reaching out to 100s of suppliers, not hearing back from them and getting your first quote after several weeks. Suppliers also get to automate responding to customers, entering once what they offer and receiving ready-to-fulfill orders.

Korso is an AI-powered operations platform for manufacturers that automates the full quote-to-order workflow: processing incoming RFQs, extracting line items, generating professional quotes, and tracking purchase orders through production. At its core is an intelligent assistant with frontier-model capabilities that understands your business documents, pricing history, and customer relationships, so your team can ask questions, get instant analysis, and make decisions in seconds rather than hours.

Dispatch is building refurbishable reentry vehicles that host and return payloads for companies making ultra-high-value materials (semiconductors, biotech, and pharma) that can only be manufactured in space. Right now, these companies have no practical way to manufacture and get their products back to Earth. We solve this bottleneck. We just returned from the Mojave Desert testing our first full-scale reentry heat shield designed to protect the satellite as it returns from space at Mach 20+, built in an apartment for 100x cheaper than competitors. To test, we held it behind a rocket engine to simulate the forces of atmospheric reentry. IT WORKED! Watch here - https://youtu.be/dhlQmnIoptg To scale, we anchor permanent infrastructure in orbit - building high power Autonomous Space Stations designed from day one for "lights-out" manufacturing serviced by the reentry vehicles.

Fortune 500 companies and the fastest-growing manufacturing firms use Arzana’s AI platform to automate order entry, quoting, and customer updates. So teams can scale faster, respond sooner, and grow without adding overhead.

Allus builds next-gen vision foundation models that bring real intelligence to manufacturing. Enabling factories to see, understand, and improve production in real time.

Bravi is building the AI operating system for home-services businesses, using AI-powered customer communication as the wedge. We replace the front office (calls, chats, follow-ups) with AI agents that never miss a lead, then layer an internal AI copilot that understands products, pricing, and technical documentation. We started with fenestration (shutters, windows, garage doors), a large, complex vertical with no modern software, before expanding to adjacent trades. Bravi is already live with leading installers and manufacturers across Europe and the US, turning missed demand into revenue.

Our agents run hardware engineering tasks that normally take hours or days in just a few minutes, allowing engineers to process 100x more data and information. Our platform allows hardware engineers to orchestrate agents for tasks such as analyzing failures across entire test campaigns, pulling the right data and KPIs from their databases, checking how conditions (like temperature or load) affect performance and reliability, and then document findings in reports and dashboards.

China and Russia control the world’s critical minerals. We can produce Titanium, Magnesium, Aluminum, Zirconium & Hafnium in the U.S. more profitably than any existing process, and carbon neutrally via co-production. Carbochlorination is the primary process for producing critical metals like titanium, hafnium, and zirconium, and was once the standard for magnesium. The problem: conventional carbochlorination relies on purchasing carbon feedstocks, wastes valuable byproducts, and is highly CO₂-intensive. Duranium changes this with a novel reactor that recycles CO₂ emissions back into feedstock (CO) while generating a valuable co-product (bleaching agents). This closed loop slashes emissions and delivers Chinese-level metal pricing without subsidies — unlocking the full potential of carbochlorination for U.S. critical mineral production.

Testing and certifying the hardware of the future

Nox Metals is an AI-powered metals supplier powering modern American manufacturing at scale. We are building automated factories that turn raw metal into production-ready material faster, cheaper, and more reliably than legacy service centers.

Photonium is building software to automate optical system design. We supercharge optics experts with intelligent tooling to reduce costs and deliver faster. We handle the full design stack — from optimization, verification, sourcing, to prototyping — for AR/VR, quantum, biotech, metrology/chip fab, LiDAR, and more.

Manufacturing pharmaceutical drugs faster and in the USA

Lumari is the world's first AI-powered procurement automation platform purpose-built for direct materials and supply chain execution. Backed by Y Combinator, Lumari is a well-funded startup that deploys 100s of always-on AI agents that run sourcing workflows, manage RFQs, expedite purchase orders, and coordinate supplier communication end-to-end -- compressing cycle times and giving teams full visibility into active orders, RFQs, and supplier performance. Founded by engineers from Google, Tesla, Amazon, and Stripe who have built and scaled supply chain systems serving millions of users. Built to operate directly on top of existing tools and ERP systems, Lumari helps procurement teams move faster, eliminate operational bottlenecks, and build more resilient supply chains. No rip-and-replace, no supplier onboarding. Lumari handles the manual chase: quote follow-ups, PO confirmations, delivery status updates, and risk escalation. Lumari helps companies from Fortune 500s to fast-growing startups automate work from sourcing to delivery, streamline supplier communication and order management, and bring full visibility to their procurement operations. To learn more check out https://lumari.io/

We're building an AI powered platform for engineers that are building new robots and machines. We allow users to invent and modify machine designs in a matter of minutes, not years. Ayna and Andy, the co-founders, met during their time at Harvard and started this in 2024 as their programs were wrapping up. We're commercializing 10+ years research done by our team at Harvard and MIT on this space. Our team wrote the very first papers on applying GenAI and optimization algorithms to compose robots from parts and applying computational design to fine tune machine designs. We're bringing in our deep knowledge of modifying equipment and integrating it into factories keenly understanding what makes hardware hard. We take in parts under consideration, constraints and tasks at hand and our algorithm formulates and fine tunes from 100s of possible design options. All in a few clicks, so engineers can push hardware to market faster and companies can benefit from the inventions being done by their R&D teams. We already have two paying customers in the OEM and system integrator spaces. We are venture backed and supported by a GBP 2.5MM grant by ARIA, the UK Government's invention agency.

For the first time in decades, fast, flexible domestic production can be economically superior. We’re rebuilding America’s productive edge through low-volume, high-mix manufacturing, helping hard-tech teams prototype faster, launch sooner, and build more here. If you want to restore American productive power and ship real hardware, reach out. jakob@foundation-industries.com

We build humanoid robot arms for AI researchers and AI-first robotic companies.

GroundControl builds mission-critical software for manufacturers in highly-regulated industries (aerospace, defense, medical) Our core product automates lengthy, complex, and regulated quality documentation in aerospace manufacturing. As an example, the Boeing 777 is made up of over 3 million parts sourced from manufacturers around the world. These manufacturers must complete quality documentation for every part on this aircraft (machined parts, printed circuit boards, wire harnesses, assemblies, and more). GroundControl helps manufacturers complete this required documentation accurately, in minutes instead of days.

We capture and structure real factory workflows at scale by combining first-person industrial video with SOP-level process knowledge. This enables robotics and AI labs to train on real production data, not just controlled lab environments.

Inversion Semiconductor is developing the next-generation chip fabrication machine, to create the most powerful chips 15x faster. Our vision is to reshore advanced chip fabrication capabilities in the West. We're building a lithography machine. Lithography uses light to pattern circuit features on silicon. We're scaling transistors to their physical limits by shrinking particle accelerators 1000x, to create a high power light source. Using our light source we will double transistor density for a given numerical aperture and 3x throughput.

Optifye.ai does AI performance monitoring for factory workers We place cameras in factories and use vision AI to tell supervisors who's working and who's not in real time. The shop floor has historically been a black box. With Optifye, manufacturing companies can now accurately measure worker output and boost efficiency!

We are making reusable satellites for zero-g manufacturing. Our first full orbital recovery mission is set to launch in April 2026.

Paragon is the AI growth engine for distributors and manufacturers, freeing up staff and growing revenue on autopilot.

Helping manufacturers and distributors eliminate manual work by automating operational processes with AI.

Forge Automation runs software enabled factories that deliver custom metal parts in four days or less. Instead of mechanical engineers having to wait two to three weeks for their low volume CNC parts, they can simply upload a CAD model on our platform and we will ship it out in four days or less. We aim to give mechanical engineers the "Amazon experience" for custom metal parts.

Mobius is the safe spot market for electronic components like microcontrollers and capacitors. We help electronics manufacturers buy and sell chips quickly, safely & at market prices.

Loombotic is automating wire harness manufacturing.

At Tiny, we’re building a new kind of ERP system for factories where AI agents automate repetitive workflows. Made for the four million factories still primarily relying on Excel. LLMs now unlock their troves of siloed unstructured data. We see a massive opportunity to build a compound startup and, beyond that, tap into network effects to unlock just-in-time manufacturing across entire supply chains.

camfer is the AI CAD tool. Now, engineers can create parametric designs with natural language.

Autumn Labs delivers a developer-friendly platform for monitoring and managing modern manufacturing lines. Seamlessly integrating with robotic stations—automated test stations, robotic assembly cells, and industrial arms—it ensures full traceability, live data monitoring, and secure data transport. We prioritize streamlining factory operations, boosting production quality, and preventing supply chain disruptions, all while offering an effortless onboarding experience for engineers and manufacturers.

Vendra makes sourcing custom parts from US manufacturers effortless. Submit one RFQ and we automate the entire sourcing process - matching you with the right suppliers, handling outreach, and collecting competitive quotes. Full transparency and no middleman markups - just smarter sourcing. Visit www.vendra.io and submit an RFQ today!

Diode automates circuit board design. We work with hardware companies to get them the PCBs they need, fast.

Distributors & Manufacturers use Soff to grow revenue through Soff's sales agents that process quotes, orders and handles all communication with customers, co-workers & suppliers.

Bucket Robotics builds deployable computer vision systems for manufacturing — without labeling, long pilots, or fragile rules. We turn CAD and sample data into production-ready vision models that run on existing cameras and edge hardware. No manual labeling. No cold-start problem. Models deploy in minutes and adapt as parts, defects, and lines change. Our roots are in self-driving cars (Argo AI, Uber ATG, Stack AV), where we learned how to ship perception systems that operators trust in messy, real-world environments. We’re applying that playbook to factories: robust sensing, fast iteration, and tooling engineers actually enjoy using. Manufacturers struggle with inspection because parts are too variable for rules-based vision and too expensive to inspect by hand. Legacy systems are rigid, hardware-locked, and slow to customize. We take the opposite approach: software-first vision that fits into existing automation and scales across SKUs, facilities, and workflows. American Manufacturing is in the middle of a $700B automation push — but quality is still a trust problem. Bucket Robotics is building the vision infrastructure that lets factories automate inspection with confidence.

Distro is the all-in-one AI-powered sales platform for counter staff and inside sales at industrial wholesale distributors (HVAC/R, plumbing, electrical, and more).

Vista designs, finances, installs, and manages energy storage and solar at commercial, industrial, and multifamily properties for $0 upfront, helping businesses save up to 30% on their energy bills. The founding team previously worked at SpaceX, Rocket Lab, NASA and Firefly.

Our mission is to empower every manufacturer, no matter their scale, to invent and build anything using intelligent robots. Today’s industrial robots are fast but "blind". They struggle with any task that isn't perfectly repetitive. We are building the eyes and brain (a proprietary vision system and AI model) that allow industrial robots to see, reason, and perform complex work with sub-millimeter accuracy and the adaptability of a human expert. We are witnessing the start of a new industrial revolution: an era of advanced manufacturing powered by AI and robotics. We aim to lead this shift by putting these tools into the hands of every manufacturer, ensuring the power to invent and build at scale isn’t a privilege of the few.

DraftAid is the world's first generative AI for CAD manufacturing drawings, akin to GitHub Copilot but for CAD. It drastically shortens drawing creation time, turning hours into seconds. Every product that is manufactured - from construction to aerospace, automotive, durable goods, and electronics—relies on drawings. Currently, engineers and designers painstakingly make these essential drawings manually. Draftaid streamlines this process saving teams millions in time and quality. The idea was born out of Abdullah's experience as a mechanical design team member, where he created thousands of drawings and longed for a more efficient process. Partnering with Tahsin, a neighbour with a PhD in AI, and Mohammed, a seasoned engineering VP with experience in construction software, they turned the dream into reality. Since their launch in August, DraftAid has engaged customers through targeted outreach and word-of-mouth, securing paid pilots with subsequent contracts valued at $150,000. Be a part of ushering in the new era of CAD designs!

Manufacturing procurement teams spend 70% of their day buried in supplier emails and spreadsheets. Mandel fixes that. We're an AI supply chain coordinator that reads every supplier email, extracts the data that matters - POs, quotes, delivery dates, pricing - and catches disruptions before they cost you.

Zelos Cloud is the data platform for mission-critical systems that enables teams to observe, control, and test systems from prototype to production. The platform connects across entire ecosystems, capturing data from many protocols, enabling remote command execution, and facilitating team collaboration through shared workspaces and real-time annotations. By integrating data collection, processing, and visualization into one seamless pipeline, Zelos Cloud eliminates complexity and breaks down silos between engineering, operations, and quality teams.

The future of mRNA therapeutics is hampered by manufacturing challenges and unless solved, its exciting potential may never be realised. Sensible enables the next generation of mRNA medicines by turning living cells into factories producing abundant, highly stable and non-immunogenic mRNA in a scalable and cost-effective way.

Thread simplifies the business processes for manufacturing companies. Upload your company documents to our secure platform, collaborate seamlessly across your organization to respond to vendor questionnaires.

Synvivia applies chemical control over cell behavior. This allows us to optimize biomanufacturing of high-value biopharmaceutical products.

Proglix is a marketplace for small and medium manufacturers to buy metal and steel raw materials in Indonesia. With our platform, customers can easily order domestic and import raw materials with cheaper price, no minimum order quantities, 2x faster in SLA and real time inventory stock.

Cerrion helps manufacturers automatically detect, understand and eliminate problems on their production lines using video-based Computer Vision. Our AI leverages standard CCTV cameras and learns how a manufacturing process looks like when things are going well and can automatically detect and track problems in real-time. For example, one of our customers, a Pepsi supplier producing 500 bottles per minute now automatically detects and reacts to a fallen bottle before it starts blocking their production line.

At Raven, we are building AI assistants for manufacturing plants which can offer intelligent assistance for day-to-day operations like training, job planning, troubleshooting, reporting and also helps with real-time analytics — all while seamlessly integrating with your existing systems. We’re taking decades of manufacturing expertise and combining it with AI to solve real operational problems. We’re a small, focused team working to make industrial operations safer, smarter, and more efficient.

Artificial Intelligence that converts manufacturing drawings into costing quotations in minutes, not weeks.

Atomic is a vertically integrated plastics supplier. To offer parts better, cheaper, and faster than anyone on Earth, we became the best mold makers using AI. Our software helps us design and build the best possible mold for each unique geometry, with the goal of moving into production more rapidly than existing supply chains.