Manufacturing and Robotics Startups funded by Y Combinator (YC) 2025

Rigetti Computing is building the world’s most powerful computers to help solve humanity’s most pressing and important problems. These systems will perform computations that today’s fastest supercomputers are incapable of — unlocking entirely new classes of problems and offering a direct path to solutions. We are scientists, engineers, builders, and visionaries. We believe quantum computing is going to significantly affect health care, how we treat disease, how we generate energy, and how we feed humanity. Rigetti is the only company deploying full-stack solutions for hybrid classical/quantum computing. Our 19-qubit quantum computer is available online through our Forest platform, and the first commercially useful applications are already under exploration. We were founded in 2013 by Chad Rigetti, and are located Berkeley and Fremont, California.

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.

Our hardware and software product verifies industrial machines are greased correctly. Incorrect greasing is the number one cause for machinery failure and costs $21bn per annum.

Hedgehog builds robotic mushroom farms. Our robots eliminate labor and our AI optimizes grow conditions to increase yield. We’ll soon grow mushrooms and fungi for <1/3rd the cost of leading growers. Fungi may address our food system’s biggest problems: they transform agricultural waste into protein-rich foods with near-zero environmental impact. Hedgehog’s technology is unleashing fungi as our next major food source.

Intelline makes fuel agnostic engines for practical, clean, and low-cost industrial power. Our first customers are in data center energy infrastructure and oil & gas production. Our engine generate electricity with even the most difficult fuels like flare gas, while reducing fuel OPEX by 40%. There are 1,000,000 new heavy duty engines produced per year, and at an average $50k per heavy duty engine this is a $50B market opportunity. Our generator can efficiently run emerging fuel types that traditional diesel engines can't use (flare gas, syngas, ammonia, hydrogen), and can switch between fossil fuels and any other liquid/gaseous fuel while running. Full size running prototype successfully tested April 2025.

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.

Alchemy is a nanotechnology company based in Kitchener, Ontario with core operations in the automotive and defense sectors. Automotive - With the widespread adoption of ADAS systems in new vehicles, the cost of replacing a windshield in new vehicles has tripled to $1500+. We have developed a windshield protection film product line called ExoShield to help vehicle owners protect their windshields. Our ExoShield GT3 film is sold through 400+ aftermarket installers and car dealerships in 56 countries that carry and install it for vehicle owners. For Jeep Wrangler and Ford Bronco owners (google: broken windshield club), our ExoShield ULTRA DIY kits are available via our website and dropshipping partners. Defense - Over the last 3 years, we have been working with the Canadian Armed Forces to develop an infrared camouflage technology. We have received two contracts from CAF to develop our technology. Our solution has the ability to be integrated into the uniform directly (adding just 5-10g of weight vs. 600-18,000 kg of weight for other alternatives), has outperformed all existing NATO alternatives in multiple CAF field trials, and is receiving support from major elements of CAF for our next contract. This technology can also be adapted for other individual camouflage integrations (face paint and individual nettings) and for mobile camouflage applications (vehicle nettings and vehicle paints).

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.

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.

Loombotic is automating wire harness manufacturing.

We make automation accessible to businesses with an affordable, general-purpose robot platform designed to automate repetitive, stationary tasks.

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

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

Ember builds hardware and system observability tools for robots and IoT devices. Founded by former Tesla Autopilot engineers, we help hardware teams catch failures early, reduce downtime, and iterate with confidence from prototype to scale.

Flywheel AI converts any existing excavators for contractors to enable remote ops to increase safety and productivity, and use robotics context dataset to train autonomous policies.

Orangewood Labs makes the world's most affordable AI-powered industrial robotic arms for small businesses! Our robots can be programmed by just using natural language prompts and cost a fraction of human labor.

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.

Skyscrape makes temperature responsive fabrics for a new type of clothing. These fabrics literally change shape in response to a change in temperature: the fabrics become thicker and insulate more as the temperature drops, and they become thinner and insulate less as the temperature rises again. This "intelligent insulation" has no wires or sensors, and the fabric's shape-changing behavior comes from a natural materials response. Skyscrape’s fabrics offer expanded thermal comfort across a wider temperature range than conventional clothing. Creating textiles that could change shape with changing temperatures required years of laboratory work by an interdisciplinary team of scientists, engineers, designers, and weavers, designing and refining machines and processes to make yarns and fabrics that could adapt to the environment. Skyscrape's first market entry was with Ralph Lauren in the 2022 Team USA Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony.

Efference is redefining robotic vision by building the most intelligent cameras on the market. We have an efficient way of computing high quality depth information and are putting that into a camera that will deliver higher performance at half the cost.

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.

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.

Maihem's generative AI platform lets you intuitively direct robots to complete varied tasks in changing environments without manual reprogramming.

We’re building AI-powered systems that automate manual work in scientific labs using robotics. Scientists simply type their experiment in plain English. Zeon translates it into code and runs it on robotic arms (no coding required). By controlling robots with natural language, we’re enabling automation for every lab, every scientist, and every experiment. Zeon is lab-aware. It detects equipment, adapts to protocols, and moves autonomously between instruments to execute full workflows. We’re already working with labs at Stanford and UCSF to accelerate discovery - from running overnight nanoparticle fluorescence measurements to safely disposing of hundreds of bacterial samples. Zeon reclaims time for what matters most: the science.

The traditional manufacturing process for individualized drugs is extremely slow and expensive, because it is based on manual labor. At Multiply Labs, we believe that robotics is the only way to truly scale the production of individualized drugs - finally providing these life-saving therapies to the millions of patients who need them. We develop cloud-controlled modular robotic systems that manufacture individualized drugs, and we deploy these systems in the facilities of our pharma customers. This is pharma robotics as a service: we sell the robotic production capacity that our customers need to scale their next-gen individualized drugs.

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.

Teach robots new skills through natural language and run reliably in production in minutes. Mbodi combines generative AI and agent orchestration, turning everyday language and quick demos into precise, reliable robot actions for industrial automation.

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.

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.

Nox Metals is building the fastest metals processing factories in North America. Our software runs quoting, scheduling, and operations to streamline production and reduce cost. We supply America's industrial base with custom-cut material at unmatched speed and efficiency.

Azalea Robotics automates airport baggage handling with intelligent robot operations. The global market for airport baggage handling systems is $20+ billion and growing, presenting a significant opportunity for innovation and market disruption in this sector. Passenger air traffic volume is increasing, driving demand for efficient and reliable baggage handling at airports and putting immense pressure on existing infrastructure. In 2023 alone, airports processed approximately 4.5 billion bags, highlighting the need for advanced solutions to manage this load effectively. Azalea Robotics provides state-of-the-art robotic systems that enhance efficiency, reduce mishandling, and improve passenger experience through more reliable operations. Baggage handling is a critical component of airline ground operations, yet it is fraught with challenges. The work is physically demanding, often leading to long-term injuries among workers. Traditional baggage handling involves repetitive lifting and maneuvering of heavy loads, which can result in long-term health issues. Azalea Robotics addresses these challenges by automating the most strenuous tasks, thereby reducing the risk of injury and enhancing operational efficiency.

Cortex AI builds the world’s most diverse and large-scale real-world workplace robot & egocentric dataset — where the physical world becomes the next training and evaluation set for embodied AI. We power frontier labs developing robotics foundation models and general-purpose robots by providing the data they need: 1️⃣ Egocentric Data — real-workplace human video with hand/body pose, depth, and subtask labels. 2️⃣ Robot Data — trajectories collected from manipulators and humanoids in real industry settings. 3️⃣ Human-in-the-Loop Rollouts & Evals — real-world deployments with remote operators who recover robots when they fail, capturing data that feeds back into training and continuously improves models. Additionally, through the Cortex Marketplace, workplaces get paid to host data-collection and evaluation sessions, while labs access the in-the-wild data that truly matters. This draws on Lucas’s previous experience as co-founder of Carousell, a C2C marketplace that scaled to a $1B+ valuation.

Pave Robotics builds robots that seal cracks in asphalt, helping paving companies save time and money. Our robots work 24/7 and deliver higher-quality results than humans.

We build brains for robots. We work with manufacturers like Unitree to make robots listen, speak, and act. You can program your robot out of the box by literally talking to it, no coding involved. Robots running Lightberry are emotionally intelligent, always on, and fully autonomous. Just like in Star Wars!

At Lucid, we are a B2B robotics provider for dull, dirty, and dangerous jobs, starting with the cleaning industry, which has a 200% annual turnover rate. Our primary product is a drone that can clean anything from windows to roofs to stadium domes to industrial tanks. Our drones can clean up to 8x faster. Due to customer demand, we also launched a ground-based pressure-washing robot to complement our cleaning drone. We support customers around the country who use our robots every day to clean properties with great safety and efficiency. We engineer, manufacture, and support our technology from a 20,000 sqft headquarters in Charlotte, NC.

Gecko Robotics is the pioneer of AI + Robotics [AIR technology], transforming how the world builds, operates, and maintains its most critical infrastructure for a more reliable and sustainable future. Using fixed sensors and robots that climb, crawl, swim, and fly, we combine first-order data layers with the predictive power of AI into a single source of truth for the physical world. Cantilever™ is our operating platform, powered by AIR technology, that empowers teams to achieve operational excellence through actionable data for immediate and long-term planning.

E-waste recycling facilities spend most of their time and effort sifting through discarded electronics, searching for valuable devices, refurbishing them, and reselling them in second-hand markets. Our first product is an AI-enabled robotic system that integrates with these facilities to assess and refurbish hundreds of laptops a day without any human intervention. The system tests laptops, wipes their hard drives, photographs them, and posts them on online marketplaces for resale, regardless of model, manufacturer, or operating system.

Charge Robotics is building robots that automate the most labor-intensive parts of solar construction. Solar has rapidly become the cheapest form of power generation in many regions. Demand has skyrocketed, and now the primary barrier to getting it installed is labor logistics and bandwidth. Our robots remove the labor bottleneck, allowing construction companies to meet the rising demand for solar, and enabling the world to switch to renewables faster.

Making the world’s first personal robot that's built for the home. Our robot, Isaac, will autonomously tidy up endless messes, fold laundry, and care for your home while you’re away, and we’re shipping our first 30 in fall of 2025.

We build humanoid home robots powered by artificial muscles. Compared to motor-driven robots, ours are lighter, softer, safer, and stronger for their weight. Richard dropped out of medicine at Oxford and Chenny left her Oxford PhD in computer science to build the full stack—from custom actuators to embodied AI. We went from zero hardware experience to a full humanoid prototype in just 2 months.

AstroForge is an asteroid mining company. Instead of bringing back the entire asteroid, we break it up, refine, and return only what’s valuable.

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.

Almond is building a vision-based AI robot for high-mix pick & place automation. We provide a fully-integrated robot-as-a-service that helps manufacturers save money and increase their revenue.

AON3D is a rapidly growing startup on a mission to put industrial 3D printing capabilities into the hands of those who need it most. Our technology has made it 10 times cheaper than before to 3D print with advanced thermoplastics, and we continue to push the boundaries on commercializing new materials for 3D printing. Our customers span the globe and are pioneers in the application of 3D printing in their field – from automotive tooling to aircraft interiors, foundry molds to public art installations, prosthetics to guides for radiation and surgical oncology. AON3D is a graduate of Y-Combinator and venture-backed by top investors from Silicon Valley.

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.

Many pressing problems facing humanity can be solved with faster scientific compute. Currently, it takes billions of dollars to design and develop a new fusion reactor, a hyper-sonic airplane or a new cancer treatment. This is because scientists and engineers have to build very expensive things before they even know if their ideas work. But what if we can simulate the workings of these ideas (and more) on computers first and have high confidence that it works before we build really expensive things? The work of humanity's greatest scientists over the years has given us the physics and math to do this. The problem is that we simply do not have the computing power to solve these big problems. To address this, the Vorticity Inc is re-imagining scientific computing all the way down to processor architecture and system design. Our proven technology is already helping the energy, life sciences and aerospace industries.

Nextera Robotics is an AI-native Robotics and Industrial Automation company founded at MIT.

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.

We build AI models for controlling robot arms, enabling them to learn new skills in just hours. Our robots help businesses cut costs by automating back-of-house tasks with an innovative pay-by-the-hour business model. Our customers include a biotech unicorn, a leading biotech non-profit, and a direct to consumer apparel brand.

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.

RMFG builds and operates advanced, software-defined factories, manufacturing precision parts and metal assemblies for fast-moving hardware teams. Our vertically integrated software platform automates quoting, DFM, scheduling, and machine control, and allows us to ship faster and at lower cost than traditional shops.  We build our own computer vision models, AI agents, and custom software to solve problems inside our manufacturing facility. Today we primarily build complex metal assemblies using sheet, tube and CNC milled parts. We plan to continually moving upstream, offering more complex manufacturing services including electro-mechanical assembly. We’ve delivered critical parts for companies building custom robots, autonomous farms, PCB factories, weather modification technology, rockets, and more. 

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.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY5zqKRy8A8

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.

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.

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.

We make the operating system to track, manage and improve production in factories with many workers. We automate what the best supervisors would do if they watched everything that’s happening inside your factory.

BotBuilt is creating flexible robotic systems to solve the housing crisis. Our cutting-edge software and cost-efficient hardware allow us to improve the world by providing beautiful construction, safer job sites, and sustainable building techniques. The $600 billion residential construction industry is facing a massive labor shortage. Our robotic systems leverage the latest in rapid prototyping, artificial intelligence, and computer vision. By taking on some of the hardest technical challenges on earth, BotBuilt is ready to help solve one of society’s biggest problems.

Pivot Robotics makes AI software for robotic arms that helps manufacturers automate their most labor intensive tasks. We are starting out with the dangerous task of metal grinding and are currently deploying our software on 10+ robots in a cast-iron foundry.

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.

Bucket Robotics is making defect detection faster, easier, and more deployable — starting with the 250M lbs of plastic wasted annually in U.S. manufacturing. Our platform turns CAD files into defect detectors. We generate synthetic, photorealistic training data to help factories catch flaws before they ship. No manual labeling, no real defects required. Our models deploy to edge hardware and integrate easily into existing automation stacks. We come from the self-driving world (Argo AI, Uber ATG, Stack AV), where we built reliable perception in high-noise, real-world environments. We're applying that experience to manufacturing: robust sensing, user-friendly interfaces, and fast iteration cycles. Manufacturers hesitate to adopt new sensing due to data concerns, integration risk, and poor UX. We’ve handled petabytes of regulated autonomy data — and built systems that earn trust. Legacy vendors like Keyence and FLIR offer hardware-centric tools with bloated pricing and outdated software. We’re building the opposite: flexible, modern tools that engineers want to use. Manufacturing is in the middle of a $700B automation wave across North America. Bucket Robotics is building the quality control infrastructure to match.

Ultra builds practical, general-purpose robots that are deploying—and producing ROI—today. Unlike traditional industrial automation that’s rigid and complex, our robots are zero integration (able to be installed in hours, not weeks) and are highly flexible, capable of quickly learning new tasks and delivering immediate value to customers. Founded by a team of three-time entrepreneurs with a decade of collaboration, Ultra moves fast. We already have robots in the field generating revenue and data, with plans to rapidly scale deployments this year.

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.

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.

Engineering tools should be as streamlined and smart as everything else in your life: as your phone, as your email, as all the apps that help you manage your day-to-day. Your work should be as efficient as possible so you can generate innovative ideas, design elegant technology, and manufacture at scale, all because you can focus on the right things. There should not be any distractions caused by poorly designed websites, unreliable data, or unwieldy spreadsheets of haphazard electronic component information. You should be able to compare components, find important technical information, and easily grasp the spectrum of parts that will be a match for your design. This is what Octopart strives for. Finding electronic component information should not be holding engineers back from bringing ideas to life quickly and efficiently. We believe that pricing, availability, technical specifications, and reference designs should be transparent, fast to find, and easy to understand. That’s why we create powerful, intelligent tools that streamline the engineering workflow and enable fast decision making. Octopart provides accurate and complete data for millions of electronic components in a way that makes it easy to find and compare parts. Focus on the important stuff: building the technology of the future.

We build automated robots for concrete floor construction. One person with our robots does the work of 6 construction workers.

At Rain Neuromorphics, we envision a future where every device possesses a dynamic and continuously learning AI brain. Neural Networks are the most powerful engines behind today's AI, but simulations require massive amounts of power and time to learn all of the synaptic connections. As opposed to a simulation, our neuromorphic hardware is a physical artificial neural network, composed of spiking neurons and physical synapses. We combine unique electroceramic materials, nanofabrication techniques, and biologically plausible models of learning to create the Memristive Nanowire Neural Network (MN3), a new type of AI chip. The MN3 can possess over ten million spiking neurons per square centimeter, and uses far less power than conventional GPUs and CPUs.