Hard Tech Startups funded by Y Combinator (YC) 2025

November 2025

Browse 80 of the top Hard Tech startups funded by Y Combinator.

We also have a Startup Directory where you can search through over 5,000 companies.

  • Proxy
    Proxy
    Y Combinator LogoS2016
    Acquired • 20 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    We're building a mobile and wearable digital wallet that makes interacting with payments, identity, and authentication seamless, fun, and empowering. Acquired by OURA in 2023
    hardware
    consumer
    identity
    hard-tech
  • SiPhox Health
    SiPhox Health
    Y Combinator LogoS2020
    Active • 30 employees • Burlington, MA, USA
    We are developing a new paradigm for consumer health tech wearables by replacing a 100lb optical instrument with an area of silicon smaller than a postage stamp.
    hard-tech
    nanosensors
    biometrics
    health-&-wellness
    health-tech
  • Zelos Cloud
    Zelos Cloud
    Y Combinator LogoS2023
    Active • 3 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    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.
    hard-tech
    data-visualization
    manufacturing
  • Conductor Quantum
    Conductor Quantum
    Y Combinator LogoS2024
    Active • 3 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    Quantum computers will allow humanity to understand the world at its most fundamental level, enabling the acceleration of drug discovery and the development of new materials. Currently, quantum engineers spend days, sometimes weeks, manually getting their silicon chips to operational conditions to realize two qubits. A qubit is the information-carrying unit of a quantum computer, analogous to a bit in a classical computer. We need billions of qubits to make a useful quantum computer. Therefore, automation software will be vital to realizing this goal. Conductor Quantum will develop AI software to remove the human from the loop, enable the scaling of silicon quantum technology and build a silicon-based quantum computer.
    artificial-intelligence
    machine-learning
    quantum-computing
    semiconductors
    hard-tech
  • Reditus Space
    Reditus Space
    Y Combinator LogoW2025
    Active • 20 employees • Atlanta, GA, USA
    We are making reusable satellites for zero-g manufacturing. Our first full orbital recovery mission is set to launch in April 2026.
    hard-tech
    aerospace
    manufacturing
  • Sinovia Technologies
    Sinovia Technologies
    Y Combinator LogoW2017
    Active • 7 employees • San Carlos, CA, USA
    We use the printing methods used for newspapers, packaging, posters, and other graphic media to make beautiful, emissive electronic displays with high-end OLED technology aimed at low-cost applications. Our displays are paper-thin, flexible, and can be easily custom printed in a variety of shapes and sizes, allowing hardware designers to use displays and indicators on curved surfaces and in new ways.
    hardware
    hard-tech
    iot
  • Yummy Future
    Yummy Future
    Y Combinator LogoS2019
    Active • 7 employees • Champaign, IL, USA
    We amplify worker produtivity by10X. Restaurants and food retail businesses require high volume and consistency, yet many business owners struggle to achieve this. Employees also dislike working in repetitive and labor-intensive environments, where even a slight mistake can lead to customer complaints. This results in high turnover rates in the restaurant industry. Our goal is to let robots and machines handle the boring, laborious tasks so that humans can focus on engaging with customers and collecting product feedback.
    hard-tech
    robotics
    hardware
    artificial-intelligence
    ai
  • Atomic Industries
    Atomic Industries
    Y Combinator LogoW2021
    Active • 25 employees • Detroit, MI, USA
    Atomic's mission is to replicate high-skill trade knowledge of tool and die makers into AI that powers new manufacturing systems which are orders of magnitude more productive.
    manufacturing
    hard-tech
    ai
  • Polymath Robotics
    Polymath Robotics
    Y Combinator LogoS2022
    Active • 20 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    Polymath is building a general autonomy stack for cautious vehicles. Our software allows any industrial vehicle - whether it's a tractor in a field or a bulldozer in a mine, drive itself. We bundle together AI, ML, Controls, ROS, Safety and best-in-class deployment practices to enable our customers to tell automated vehicles to do via a REST API. We're on more robots than we have engineers, are seeing our revenue (and robotic fleet) grow rapidly, and are looking for folks who want to help automate the world.
    robotics
    hard-tech
    machine-learning
    unmanned-vehicle
    ai
  • Alba Orbital
    Alba Orbital
    Y Combinator LogoW2021
    Active • 16 employees • Glasgow, UK
    Alba Orbital is building the world's largest earth observation constellation, imaging everywhere on earth, every 15 minutes. We can see events within minutes such as wildfires in real time and have signed >$85m of LOIs, with both government and commercial customers paying pre-orders for imagery. To date we have launched 41 satellites into orbit (more than any other seed stage company in history), with more launching in 2024 onwards. We have launched a number of technology demonstration imaging satellites called Unicorns, which are the world's most advanced satellite under 1kg ever flown in orbit.
    satellites
    hard-tech
  • Vena Vitals
    Vena Vitals
    Y Combinator LogoS2020
    Active • 9 employees • Irvine, CA, USA
    Vena Vitals makes a small sticker that monitors blood pressure continuously. We've shown that it works in the operating room and is as accurate as the best tools doctors have today, at a fraction of the cost. We're a team of health tech scientists with multiple past startups and exits, and we've built products that have scaled to over 2M users.
    hard-tech
    nanosensors
    health-tech
    medical-devices
    digital-health
  • Elodin
    Elodin
    Y Combinator LogoW2024
    Active • 5 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    Elodin creates flight software, simulations, and hardware for drones, satellites, and defense.
    aerospace
    drones
    satellites
    rocketry
    hard-tech
  • General Agency
    General Agency
    Y Combinator LogoW2025
    Active • 2 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    We are building Tessa, an AI coworker that can autonomously learn and master the usage of web-based tools, just like a human does. To accomplish this, we are building a novel neural architecture that enables autonomous self-improvement in AI agents. So far, we've achieved a state-of-the-art success rate of 93% on the WebVoyager benchmark. We are working to automate workflows in several verticals, including property management & real estate, financial services, and consulting.
    ai-assistant
    automation
    hard-tech
    reinforcement-learning
    artificial-intelligence
  • Maritime Fusion
    Maritime Fusion
    Y Combinator LogoW2025
    Active • 4 employees
    Maritime Fusion is building HTS (high-temperature superconducting) fusion reactors for defense and commercial shipping applications. Breakeven fusion is coming soon, but the first-of-a-kind (FOAK) reactors will be costly, high maintenance, and have low capacity factors, leading to 5–10x higher electricity cost on the grid. Maritime Fusion is pursuing the most widely accepted approach to fusion, the tokamak, but specifically designed for the marine environment where the challenges that arise between breakeven and a commercially viable energy source are alleviated. The market we're targeting requires 15x less power, lower up-time, and costs the same as alternative fuels but without any emissions. Since fusion does not use highly radioactive fuels or materials – unlike fission – we sidestep the vast majority of regulatory challenges and safety risks associated with nuclear energy. Our team brings over a decade of industry and research experience in plasma physics, nuclear engineering, and electrical engineering with backgrounds at SpaceX, Tesla, Columbia University, and University of Pennsylvania.
    hard-tech
    fusion-energy
    energy
  • Albedo
    Albedo
    Y Combinator LogoW2021
    Active • 55 employees • Denver, CO, USA
    Albedo builds and operates satellites in Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) — a new orbital layer much closer to Earth than traditional satellites in LEO. Flying lower unlocks sharper imagery, faster communications, and real-time maneuverability with smaller, more efficient hardware. VLEO is naturally self-cleaning and resilient, offering a sustainable alternative to crowded low Earth orbit - providing diversification and redundancy for critical systems that we rely on in higher orbits. With the only flight proven VLEO system on the market, Albedo is creating a new orbital infrastructure designed for speed, precision, and resilience.
    climate
    satellites
    hard-tech
    aerospace
  • Sorcerer
    Sorcerer
    Y Combinator LogoS2024
    Active • 4 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    Sorcerer is deploying a global network of persistent airborne sensors to fuel advanced weather forecasting. Our high-altitude balloons collect 1000x more data than existing systems and are already used daily by meteorologists to track extreme weather across the US and Central America.
    climate
    aerospace
    hard-tech
    artificial-intelligence
    hardware
  • Volta Labs, Inc.
    Volta Labs, Inc.
    Y Combinator LogoW2019
    Active • 50 employees • Cambridge, MA, USA
    Volta Labs is a genomics applications company that has developed a cutting-edge digital fluidics platform to maximize performance and scalability of sample preparation in genomics while providing unparalleled consistency. Volta is transforming the way biological research and analyses are performed, allowing scientists to focus on what they do best -- pushing the boundaries of biology. As a collective of scientists and builders working at the intersection of engineering and biology, we imagine a world where extracting vital information from biological samples is as simple as pressing a button. That's our vision, and we're turning it into reality. Our HQ is in Boston’s Seaport, where we develop and manufacture our technology. We believe in cross-functional collaboration and continuous learning – whether your interest is in biology, MechEng, CompEng, or simply joining a fast-growing startup striving to make the world a better place, we'd love to welcome you to our team. Check out some of our blog posts to learn more about work life at Volta.
    hardware
    hard-tech
    biotechnology
    genomics
    robotics
  • Atum Works
    Atum Works
    Y Combinator LogoX2025
    Active • 3 employees • Mountain View, CA, USA
    Atum Works is building 3D ASML. Founded by Caltech and NASA engineers, we're starting the next scaling law of semiconductor manufacturing, this time in 3D.
    3d-printing
    semiconductors
    hard-tech
  • NetworkOcean
    NetworkOcean
    Y Combinator LogoS2024
    Active • 4 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    We build underwater data centers to cut power usage by up to 30%, operating GPUs cheaper and more sustainably. Our 1 MW capsule is being tested underwater in the SF Bay
    hard-tech
    cloud-computing
    climatetech
    hardware
    artificial-intelligence
  • Advano
    Advano
    Y Combinator LogoS2017
    Active • 25 employees • New Orleans, LA, USA
    Combining nanotechnology with fundamental chemical engineering principles to accelerate the renewable energy revolution.
    climate
    energy-storage
    hard-tech
  • AutoPallet Robotics
    AutoPallet Robotics
    Y Combinator LogoS2024
    Active • 3 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    We’re building the next generation of warehouse robotics. In the US today, retailers spend approximately $10B per year paying human laborers to pick up and move cardboard boxes in warehouses. Existing solutions for automating this are expensive and difficult to install, which is why manual operation is still so prevalent. Our solution is different. We make swarms of small mobile robots that install into existing warehouses to provide a low-cost and robust automation solution for case picking and mixed-SKU palletization. Our novel technology allows these robots to be installed and operate at significantly lower cost than existing solutions while being both flexible and robust.
    machine-learning
    swarm-robotics
    warehouse-management-tech
    automation
    hard-tech
  • AstroForge
    AstroForge
    Y Combinator LogoW2022
    Active • 10 employees • Huntington Beach, CA, USA
    AstroForge is an asteroid mining company. Instead of bringing back the entire asteroid, we break it up, refine, and return only what’s valuable.
    space-exploration
    robotics
    hard-tech
    satellites
  • Yondu
    Yondu
    Y Combinator LogoW2024
    Active • 3 employees • Los Angeles, CA, USA
    Yondu is creating the robotic workforce of the future starting with logistics automation. We're deploying humanoid robots in the first flexible, drop-in picking automation solution designed for 3PLs.
    ai
    robotics
    logistics
    hard-tech
  • Helion Energy
    Helion Energy
    Y Combinator LogoS2014
    Active • 150 employees • Everett, WA, USA
    Helion is creating the world’s first fusion power plant, enabling a future with unlimited zero-carbon electricity.
    fusion-energy
    climate
    hard-tech
    energy
  • Forge Automation
    Forge Automation
    Y Combinator LogoW2025
    Active • 9 employees • Toronto, ON, Canada
    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.
    hardware
    hard-tech
    manufacturing
    industrial
    robotics
  • 1849 bio
    1849 bio
    Y Combinator LogoS2024
    Active • 3 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    1849 bio designs microbes enabling cheap metal extraction allowing miners to unlock value from low quality copper and gold ores. Surprisingly, the mining industry is one of the largest scale users of biotech in the world with biomining processes accounting for ~1% of global copper production. Biomining is ultra-low cost, running around ~$1/ton of ore vs ~$7/ton for conventional processes. Unfortunately, while biomining is cheap, it can’t be applied to over 80% of copper ores, leaving vast resources without profitable extraction methods. An estimated ~$800B of copper sit today in waste materials and stockpiles with negative unit economics. While a great deal of effort has been spent on optimizing microbial metal extraction processes, very little effort has been spent on optimizing the microbes themselves. To change that, we’re creating new biotech tools and platforms applied directly to the types of biology most relevant to miners. This enables us to develop new microbes and tackle some of the most difficult problems in biomining, unlocking billions in value from unprofitable resources while being more environmentally friendly than conventional processes. We’re world class microbial engineers. We met while doing our PhDs in synthetic biology, where we spent our time applying and developing the most advanced bioengineering technologies to engineer living cells. 
    synthetic-biology
    hard-tech
    mining
    climate
    biotech
  • CircuitHub
    CircuitHub
    Y Combinator LogoW2012
    Active • 58 employees • London, UK
    CircuitHub offers on-demand electronics manufacturing powered by our factory-scale robotics platform, The Grid. This platform delivers a 10x improvement in the speed and cost of small-batch electronics production. Leading customers like Tesla, NASA, and Zipline rely on CircuitHub to cut their time to market in half.
    hardware
    robotics
    hard-tech
    manufacturing
    automation
  • Spaceium Inc
    Spaceium Inc
    Y Combinator LogoS2024
    Active
    Spaceium builds fully automated space stations to refuel and repair spacecraft. We have secured $86.1 million in binding commercial contracts and have an additional $230 million in the pipeline. Additionally, we have 1 billion dollars in letters of intent. We have successfully tested our hardware, which will launch to space next year. Our fully automated space stations will efficiently store and transfer both cryogenic (extremely cold) and non-cryogenic fuels with zero loss during storage and transfer. And they can transfer fuel seamlessly to any spacecraft design using our proprietary modular robotic arm. Our customers include launch vehicles, orbital transfer vehicles, moon landers, and spacecraft that benefit from increased payload capacity and extended travel capabilities. Our long-term vision is to build service hubs along the space superhighway to connect Earth to Moon and Mars and help humanity to become multi multi-planetary species
    space-exploration
    hard-tech
    aerospace
    robotics
  • Biocartesian
    Biocartesian
    Y Combinator LogoS2024
    Active • 2 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    Finding new cures requires seeing what and where the abnormal molecules are in a diseased tissue, but current tools see less than 1% of those molecules. Biocartesian combines microscopy and new chemistries to see 50X more, offering unprecedented insights into disease biology and new therapies.
    drug-discovery
    biotech
    b2b
    hard-tech
    diagnostics
  • Optifye.ai
    Optifye.ai
    Y Combinator LogoW2025
    Active • 8 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    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!
    computer-vision
    manufacturing
    hard-tech
  • Flux Auto
    Flux Auto
    Y Combinator LogoW2021
    Active • 56 employees • Houston, TX, USA
    Flux Auto is building autonomous mobility technology to fully automate the movement and operation of vehicles in controlled spaces. Using Flux's solutions customers can reduce their dependency on human drivers, while also increasing productivity and reducing operating costs. Flux is currently deploying in warehouses, farms and mines.
    autonomous-trucking
    logistics
    robotics
    hard-tech
    ai
  • GBatteries
    GBatteries
    Y Combinator LogoW2014
    Active • 25 employees • Ottawa, ON, Canada
    Our technology enables li-ion batteries to charge extremely fast while retaining long cycle life using smart control algorithms.
    energy-storage
    hard-tech
    climate
  • SRTX
    SRTX
    Y Combinator LogoW2018
    Active • 150 employees • Montreal, QC, Canada
    SRTX builds new materials and software to enable better textiles. SRTX is best known for its first technology, Sheertex, a knit made from one of the world's strongest polymers which has disrupted hosiery through impossibly strong pantyhose.
    manufacturing
    smart-clothing
    consumer
    hard-tech
  • Sensei
    Sensei
    Y Combinator LogoS2024
    Active • 2 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    Sensei helps robotics companies scale and outsource their training data collection. Our hardware platform enables the collection of human-demonstration data at a tenth of the cost and twice the speed of current teleop approaches. Our software platform acts like Scale AI for robotics data: a large network of paid human operators use our low-cost collection platform to fulfill data-generation requests.
    robotics
    hard-tech
    artificial-intelligence
    marketplace
    data-engineering
  • SigmanticAI
    SigmanticAI
    Y Combinator LogoS2025
    Active • 2 employees • Dublin, CA 94568, USA
    SigmanticAI is building an AI-native hardware development assistant that automates the entire RTL design flow, from natural language to synthesizable HDL and testbenches, inside a seamless VSCode fork. Powered by fine-tuned Verilog LLMs, reinforcement learning, and real compiler feedback, SigmanticAI iteratively refines code until it compiles and passes synthesis, no matter how complex the design. It’s like the Cursor for HDL design. In addition to code generation, SigmanticAI can generate token-level annotations and onboarding documents to accelerate ramp-up for new engineers. With support for both cloud and on-prem deployment, it integrates with existing EDA tools to dramatically reduce debug time, improve collaboration, and accelerate hardware design across teams
    ai-assistant
    hard-tech
    hardware
    b2b
    ai
  • Starcloud
    Starcloud
    Y Combinator LogoS2024
    Active • 12 employees • Redmond, WA, USA
    (Formerly known as Lumen Orbit) Starcloud is building data centers in space, initially to provide GPU compute to other satellites, and later to address the rapidly growing demand for energy caused by the deployment of AI. Falling launch costs give us access to abundant energy, passive cooling, and the ability to rapidly scale in space. In Partnership with NVIDIA's Inception Program, we are launching our demonstrator satellite in late 2025, which will have 100x more powerful GPUs than have ever been operated in space.
    cloud-computing
    satellites
    hard-tech
    climate
    artificial-intelligence
  • Greywing
    Greywing
    Y Combinator LogoW2021
    Active • 3 employees • Singapore
    Greywing is a platform for ship operators to automate their business, through actionable intelligence, better data and communication. Greywing today serves three product lines to customers: *Flotilla* is a monitoring tool for vessels, enabling vessel managers to identify fleet-level patterns and optimizations and to identify risk and liability vectors in advance. *CRY4* is an operational tool for individual vessels that allows crew managers, security officers and masters to gather intelligence about a vessels current or proposed route, making decisions about the safest and the cheapest ports of call that a vessel can be directed to. *Landfall* is a crew management and analysis system to provide risk reporting and detailed editing capabilities about the crew on-board a vessel. *Semaphore* is a port-agent communications tool meant to simplify the process of interfacing with large numbers of port agents while planning a port call.
    hard-tech
    saas
    maritime
  • Javelin Robotics
    Javelin Robotics
    Y Combinator LogoW2021
    Active • 5 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    We help truckers cut delivery times, increasing productivity and adding much needed capacity to the freight industry. We do this by building autonomy software that tag-teams with human drivers. Conventional trucks drive ~120K miles/ year. Trucks with our tech can hit more than 190K miles/ year.
    hard-tech
    robotics
    transportation
    autonomous-trucking
    ai
  • Boost Robotics
    Boost Robotics
    Y Combinator LogoX2025
    Active • 2 employees • Boston, MA, USA
    Boost Robotics is building autonomous mobile manipulation robots to remotely perform manual tasks in data centers. The surge in AI applications is pushing data centers to scale faster than they can manage, leading to suboptimal operations and staffing shortages amid rising power and compute demands. We save data centers millions in insurance premiums and SLA violations by increasing the frequency of inspection and maintenance while reducing the time it takes to triage and address failures.
    hard-tech
    artificial-intelligence
    hardware
    robotics
    infrastructure
  • Observant AI
    Observant AI
    Y Combinator LogoW2018
    Active • 5 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    Observant AI is an iPhone-based driver monitoring system for commercial fleets. It uses machine learning + iPhone's depth sensors to detect unsafe driver behavior, prevent accidents, and save lives.
    hard-tech
    saas
    machine-learning
    autonomous-trucking
  • spotLESS Materials
    spotLESS Materials
    Y Combinator LogoS2019
    Active • 6 employees • State College, PA, USA
    Surface fouling is a costly challenge across industries, impacting medical consumables, diagnostic devices, and automotive components. Contamination from substances like mud, ice, and sludge can compromise performance and lead to frequent cleaning, repairs, and replacements. Our PFAS-free coating, which we first launched as a consumer product, has quickly expanded into industrial partnerships. It dramatically reduces contamination on critical surfaces such as glass, metal, ceramic, and now plastics too. Whether for medical devices or automotive components, our coating protects against surface fouling Currently our coatings work best on glass, metal, and ceramic surfaces.
    hard-tech
    nanotechnology
    advanced-materials
  • Instinct
    Instinct
    Y Combinator LogoW2025
    Active • 4 employees
    Instinct is making the Moon the new LEO. Our small lunar lander is designed to be launched as a regular LEO rideshare, enabling higher mission cadence at a lower cost.
  • Teleo
    Teleo
    Y Combinator LogoW2020
    Active • 30 employees • Palo Alto, CA, USA
    Teleo converts heavy equipment, like dozers, trucks, and loaders, into supervised autonomous robots. This enables a single operator to remotely operate multiple machines while sitting at a remote control center, unlocking productivity gains for the General Contractor.
    autonomous-trucking
    hard-tech
    robotics
  • Wyvern
    Wyvern
    Y Combinator LogoW2022
    Active • 26 employees • Edmonton, AB, Canada
    Wyvern is a space data company that will capture the highest resolution hyperspectral images from satellites that cost 100X less than satellites using traditional telescopes.
    climate
    hard-tech
    satellites
  • Seabound
    Seabound
    Y Combinator LogoW2022
    Active • 9 employees • London, UK
    Seabound builds carbon capture equipment for ships. We're the only way for existing ships to reduce up to 95% of CO2 emissions and meet new global regulations.
    hard-tech
    climate
    transportation
  • Odys Aviation
    Odys Aviation
    Y Combinator LogoS2021
    Active • 11 employees • Los Angeles, CA, USA
    Odys Aviation (formerly Craft Aero) builds vertical take-off and landing aircraft for major airlines. We cut travel time in half on the world’s busiest routes by using city helipads and local airports. The company founders are electric propulsion and automotive manufacturing experts who have spent their careers electrifying transportation systems at Virgin Hyperloop, GoogleX, Volvo, and Fisker Automotive. We’ve won two USAF Agility Prime contracts, have pre-orders and options for more than 1,000 aircraft.
    hard-tech
    airplanes
    climate
  • HABIT
    HABIT
    Y Combinator LogoX2025
    Active • 2 employees
    HABIT will deploy on-demand robotic labor to you — and to restaurants, hotels, stores, and farms in your neighborhood. Our first vertical (the $45B car wash and auto detailing market) is high cost, labor intensive, and already offered in thousands of locations across America.
    ai
    consumer
    b2b
    robotics
    hard-tech
  • Care Weather
    Care Weather
    Y Combinator LogoW2021
    Active • 2 employees • Orem, UT, USA
    Care Weather collects the highest-accuracy global weather data to help governments and shipping companies adapt to extreme weather. The data is collected by Care Weather’s unique flat-panel radar satellite, which is 1000X more cost effective because it’s vertically integrated, gets more solar power, and sails on top of the atmosphere for a closer view of the surface. Our team includes CEO Patrick Walton (NASA Earth science fellow) and CTO Alex Laraway (mach 4 rockets). In the last 4 months, we built and launched the smallest radar satellite ever. We have $35M worth of LOIs, including one from the Air Force and others from cargo shippers. Care Weather is backed by Boost VC, Kickstart Seed Fund, Y Combinator, and more.
    space-exploration
    satellites
    hard-tech
    agriculture
    weather
  • PowerMatrix
    PowerMatrix
    Y Combinator LogoX2025
    Active • 2 employees • Cambridge, UK
    PowerMatrix provides the MOST efficient and compact next-generation high-performance power supplies for emerging technologies, such as GPUs, xPUs, AI server, datacenters, drones, EV, aerospace, etc. Based on patented circuit topology, embedded packaging, and novel magnetics, our power supply systems can reduce energy loss by up to 50%. We have developed several prototypes and are collaborating with world-leading customers.
    electronics
    energy
    hardware
    hard-tech
    semiconductors
  • Airthium
    Airthium
    Y Combinator LogoS2017
    Active • 18 employees • Paris, France
    We build engines that have the potential to slash 33% or worldwide CO2 emissions - cost-effectively. First, we help food and mining companies cut both their heat costs *and* CO2 emissions by replacing gas-fired steam boilers with our proprietary high temperature heat pumps. Our heat pumps make up to 3x more heat with the same amount of electricity, even at up to 1000°F. Once the heat pump market is mature, we will address the seasonal energy storage market. Our storage units are based on the exact same proprietary engine we use for our heat pumps. They work with solar and wind, and replace lithium-ion batteries, fossil-fired power plants, CO2 capture and storage, and fuel procurement, with a cheaper, sustainable and more reliable alternative, which can be sited anywhere. The first opportunity is a high-margin market worth 3% of worldwide CO2. The second is a much bigger market worth 30% of worldwide CO2. By the time all cars become electric, it will be even more. Our key is we are building the first Stirling engine to reach 86% of the Carnot efficiency, compared to 64% for the state of the art. We do all that while significantly decreasing costs, and increasing reliability. Please see Airthium's website for more information.
    climate
    energy-storage
    energy
    hard-tech
    hardware
  • Andromeda Surgical
    Andromeda Surgical
    Y Combinator LogoS2023
    Active • 10 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    We're building autonomous robots to make surgery safe, easier and more efficient. Robots currently perform about 1/4 of surgeries but only help with the physical aspects. We use AI to make surgery cognitively easier. This has far greater potential to improve outcomes and reduce costs. Founded by 3x founders from medtech and autonomous vehicles, we're on track to be the fastest surgical robot to market of all time. First indication is prostate enucleation.
    artificial-intelligence
    medical-robotics
    medical-devices
    hard-tech
    machine-learning
  • Sygaldry Technologies
    Sygaldry Technologies
    Y Combinator LogoX2025
    Active
    We’re building quantum-accelerated AI servers so organizations building AI can exponentially speed up training and inference. And we’re making tools for AI researchers to integrate quantum capabilities into AI models and workflows.
    ai
    quantum-computing
    hard-tech
  • Cactus
    Cactus
    Y Combinator LogoS2025
    Active • 3 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    App developers can now deploy private, local, offline AI models in their mobile apps, achieving up to 150 tokens/sec and <50ms time to first token. Cactus is used by 3k+ developers and completes 500k+ weekly inference tasks on phones today. It is open-source! Check out the repo: https://github.com/cactus-compute/cactus
    artificial-intelligence
    ai
    developer-tools
    hard-tech
    open-source
  • Stralis Aircraft
    Stralis Aircraft
    Y Combinator LogoW2023
    Active • 4 employees • Brisbane QLD, Australia
    Our planes fly 10 times further than battery electric alternatives, with a lower operating cost than fossil fuel powered aircraft. Our first product is a 15 seat aircraft with a range of 800 km that enters service in 2026 with launch customer Skytrans. Our team has over 85 years of aerospace experience and have developed, flight tested and certified aircraft at Google X, magniX, Heart Aerospace, Ampaire, Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier and Gulfstream. We have $145M in aircraft LOIs from 7 airlines in the US, Europe and Australia.
    airplanes
    hydrogen-energy
    electric-vehicles
    hard-tech
    climate
  • VedaBio
    VedaBio
    Y Combinator LogoS2021
    Active • 30 employees • San Diego, CA, USA
    Syndromic testing powered by engineered CRISPR enzymes. Get comprehensive results in every doctor visit. More at www.vedabio.com
    hard-tech
  • Auricle
    Auricle
    Y Combinator LogoW2021
    Active • 2 employees • Mountain View, CA, USA
    Auricle is a medical device company building a breakthrough neurostimulation implant to restore hearing in millions of patients who no longer benefit from hearing aids, get less than 60% on a word recognition test, but aren't prepared to make the jump to a cochlear implant. Our approach preserves remaining natural hearing through a reversible and less invasive surgery, addressing the key concerns that hold most patients back from getting a cochlear implant (currently the only treatment option for these patients). The company spun out of Stanford Biodesign having completed two acute human clinical studies demonstrating the approach will work. The team is now focused on developing their full implant system for their first clinical trial. Auricle addresses a currently unserved profile of hearing loss that affects a growing population of 3.5 million patients in the US and represents an immediately accessible $1.2B market opportunity with existing reimbursement.
    health-tech
    medical-devices
    hard-tech
    neurotechnology
    healthcare
  • rex.fit
    rex.fit
    Y Combinator LogoW2023
    Active • 2 employees • Zürich, Switzerland
    The DROP by Rex.Fit is an AI wearable camera that automates nutrition tracking using computer vision. It has garnered more than 93k USD in preorders (~450 units) since its launch last month. The nutrition estimation and recommendation tech behind the DROP is already integrated as an API for fitness chains, generating hundreds of thousands of dollars in yearly revenue for them. The DROP is built by brothers, sports nutritionists and computer vision engineers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich).
    computer-vision
    fitness
    consumer-health-services
    artificial-intelligence
    hard-tech
  • Kilobaser
    Kilobaser
    Y Combinator LogoW2021
    Active • 10 employees • Graz, Austria
    We combined microfluidic chip technology and a reagent cartridge to create the first personal DNA synthesizer. Until now most life scientists had to rely on out-sourced DNA synthesis, causing stagnating research. Kilobaser empowers every life scientist to synthesize DNA on their benchtop.
    hardware
    hard-tech
    medical-devices
  • Cascade Space
    Cascade Space
    Y Combinator LogoX2025
    Active • 3 employees
    Cascade Space is building a turn-key communications system for lunar and deep space missions. Our ground station network and integrated software tools work together to maximize uptime and availability, while reducing spacecraft iteration cycles from weeks to hours.
    hard-tech
    hardware
    saas
    aerospace
    industrial
  • Godela
    Godela
    Y Combinator LogoX2025
    Active • 3 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    What if every experiment you wanted to run could be modeled using AI? Godela is an AI-powered physics engine that gives engineers faster, cheaper replacement to simulations and physical prototypes. No set up, no wait. Just ask—and get simulation quality result.
    hard-tech
    hardware
    aerospace
    ml
    artificial-intelligence
  • Ultralight
    Ultralight
    Y Combinator LogoW2019
    Active • 1 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    Ultralight is a GPU-accelerated toolkit to embed modern HTML in games and native apps. Available for C and C++ on Windows, macOS, Linux, Xbox, PlayStation, ARM64 devices, and more. Developed in collaboration with leading game studios, built GPU-first on a new, lightweight fork of WebKit.
    gaming
    b2b
    developer-tools
    hard-tech
    api
  • Meticulous
    Meticulous
    Y Combinator LogoS2021
    Active • 5 employees • London, UK
    Meticulous is a tool to automatically catch UI bugs in your web application with zero-effort. Install our JavaScript snippet onto production or staging and dev environments, which records user sessions by collecting clickstream and network data. When you post a pull request, Meticulous selects a subset of sessions which are relevant and simulates these against the frontend of your application. Meticulous takes screenshots at key points and detects any visual differences. It posts those diffs in a comment for you to inspect in a few seconds. This eliminates the setup and maintenance burden of UI testing.
    developer-tools
    saas
    hard-tech
  • Humane Genomics
    Humane Genomics
    Y Combinator LogoS2021
    Active • 5 employees • New York, NY, USA
    Humane Genomics has developed a platform to engineer cancer killing viruses. We have taken a first principles approach to design and make oncolytic viral therapies. Using a highly lytic RNA virus engineered with "2 factor authentication" (using selective infection and selective replication) they have an on-target to off-target kill ratio > 1000. We are working on our first indication, pediatric liver cancer (hepatoblastoma), with our partners at Texas Children's Hospital, who are world leading experts. We have in vivo (mouse) data showing safety and currently developing efficacy data and are showing 50% reduction in tumor volume.
    hard-tech
    synthetic-biology
  • Luminate Medical
    Luminate Medical
    Y Combinator LogoS2021
    Active • 36 employees • Galway, Ireland
    We make devices that help cancer patients prevent the side effects of cancer treatment, including hair loss, neuropathy and infertility. Our first product, Lily, is a wearable cap that enables chemotherapy patients to prevent hair loss in a comfortable, portable way, while our second product, Lilac, is the world's first device to prevent the peripheral nerve damage caused by cancer treatment.
    consumer-health-services
    hard-tech
    medical-devices
  • Hubble Network
    Hubble Network
    Y Combinator LogoW2022
    Active • 50 employees • Seattle, WA, USA
    Hubble is building a global satellite network that any Bluetooth-enabled device can connect to, even without cellular reception. Our mission in life is to get a billion devices connected to the network and unlock a new era of human-machine collaboration.
    satellites
    iot
    developer-tools
    hard-tech
    hardware
  • Industrial Next
    Industrial Next
    Y Combinator LogoW2022
    Active • 9 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    We bring Tesla autonomous manufacturing to every automaker and other producers. At Tesla, we were the core autonomous factory team and we’re now building the smart cameras and robotic guidance tools that provided the main advantages at Tesla
    hard-tech
    robotics
    manufacturing
    ai
  • Palitronica Inc
    Palitronica Inc
    Y Combinator LogoW2022
    Active • 6 employees • Kitchener, ON, Canada
    Palitronica builds and deploys cutting-edge solutions to defend critical physical infrastructure and its supply chain. By using side-channel information from endpoints, Palitronica provides a safe attack detection capability retrofittable to critical systems.
    security
    hardware
    hard-tech
  • NearWave
    NearWave
    Y Combinator LogoW2022
    Active • 3 employees • Austin, TX, USA
    NearWave makes a handheld imaging device that helps physicians select the right therapy for their breast cancer patients. This prevents patients from suffering through months of side effects caused by unsuccessful treatments.
    artificial-intelligence
    medical-devices
    hardware
    hard-tech
    saas
  • Enlightra
    Enlightra
    Y Combinator LogoW2022
    Active • 10 employees • Ecublens, Switzerland
    Enlightra develops mass-manufacturable fingertip-size multicolor lasers enabling ultrafast data communication and optical computing while providing up to 10x improvement in energy efficiency and cost reduction.
    hard-tech
    hardware
  • Andson Biotech
    Andson Biotech
    Y Combinator LogoW2022
    Active • 4 employees • Atlanta, GA, USA
    Andson Biotech helps pharmaceutical companies measure difficult to detect chemicals that they need to measure while developing and manufacturing drugs like cell-therapies or biologics. Drug companies want to use our technologies to get fast and accurate chemical measurements they do thousands of times per day for drug development and quality control.
    biotech
    healthcare
    hard-tech
    gene-therapy
    therapeutics
  • Impossible Metals
    Impossible Metals
    Y Combinator LogoW2022
    Active • 20 employees • Pasadena, CA, USA
    Impossible mining is building underwater robotics vehicles which collect battery metals from the seabed without harming the environment. We have $500M+ in off-take LoI’s and have signed a partnership with a global offshore logistics company which holds a seabed mining exploration permit. We have also built the 1st PoC underwater robotic arm. Polymetallic nodules are rocks which are rich in critical battery metals. Specially nickel, cobalt, manganese and copper. These metals are the the most expensive part of EVs.
    robotics
    mining
    artificial-intelligence
    hard-tech
    climatetech
  • AirMyne
    AirMyne
    Y Combinator LogoW2022
    Active • 11 employees • Berkeley, CA, USA
    AirMyne is building machines to capture & remove carbon dioxide from ambient atmospheric air so it can be utilized or sequestered downstream. Our team is based in Berkeley, CA.
    carbon-capture-and-removal
    climate
    hardware
    hard-tech
  • Integrated Reasoning
    Integrated Reasoning
    Y Combinator LogoS2022
    Active • 1 employees • San Francisco, CA, USA
    Integrated Reasoning builds efficient computer processors that are tailored to the memory access patterns of Karp's 21 NP-complete problems. We’re making it 100x - 10,000x faster to perform computations like scheduling airline pilots or optimizing packing layouts for shipping containers.
    artificial-intelligence
    developer-tools
    hardware
    hard-tech
    saas
  • Atomic Alchemy
    Atomic Alchemy
    Y Combinator LogoW2019
    Acquired • 8 employees • Idaho Falls, ID, USA
    Atomic Alchemy is building a bank of reactors to produce the nuclear material that goes into nuclear medicine. Radiopharmaceuticals are vitally important in biological tracers, diagnostic imaging, and cancer treatments. Currently, the world's supply of Molybdenum-99, the cornerstone of 80% of all nuclear medicine procedures, is sourced from just six government-run, scientific research reactors abroad. Five of these reactors are 45-65 years old and are quickly coming to the end of their operational life. This has cultivated a fragile and lengthy supply chain, at odds with the nature of radioactive material. This issue and its implications do not just effect molybdenum, but any other reactor-based isotope. Many promising cancer therapies are stuck in clinical trials, unable to secure enough material in a timely manner. Research doesn’t even happen because of the difficulty of sourcing any new isotopes. It doesn't have to be this way. Atomic Alchemy is working to solve this by building the world's first scalable radioisotope production facility. This facility will contain the world’s first privately-owned nuclear reactors dedicated to radioisotope production.
    hard-tech
    small-modular-reactors
    medical-devices
  • Roin Technologies
    Roin Technologies
    Y Combinator LogoW2021
    Acquired • 3 employees • San Francisco Bay Area, CA, USA
    We build automated robots for concrete floor construction. One person with our robots does the work of 6 construction workers.
    robotics
    hardware
    hard-tech