Daedalus, which is constructing precision-manufacturing factories powered by AI, raises $21M

A fledgling startup based by one among OpenAI’s first engineering hires is trying to “redefine manufacturing,” with AI-powered factories for creating bespoke precision elements.

Daedalus, as the corporate is named, relies within the southwestern German metropolis of Karlsruhe, the place its solo manufacturing facility is presently housed. Right here, Daedalus takes orders from industries resembling medical gadgets, aerospace, defence, and semiconductors, every requiring distinctive parts for his or her merchandise. For instance, a pharmaceutical firm would possibly require a personalized steel casing for a valve used within the manufacturing of a selected drugs.

Because it appears to be like to ramp up operations with a view towards opening further factories in its home market, Daedalus in the present day introduced it has raised $21 million in a Collection A spherical of funding led by Nokia-funded NGP Capital, with participation from current buyers Khosla Ventures and Addition.

This takes Daedalus’s whole funding previous the $40 million mark, with different notable buyers together with Y Combinator (YC) which turned concerned after Daedalus participated in YC’s Winter 2020 program.

The Daedalus manufacturing facility flooring Picture Credit: Daedalus

Fragmented fabrication

The manufacturing {industry} — significantly because it pertains to precision half fabrication — is hugely fragmented by just about every estimation. Whereas it’s tempting to think about {that a} typical manufacturing setup in 2024 is one thing akin to that of a big automotive meeting plant, this actually solely applies the place high-volume merchandise (like automobiles) are concerned — the truth is considerably completely different if you get right down to the extent of precisions elements utilized in industrial equipment.

An organization that has been designing industry-specific valves for many years seemingly gained’t be manufacturing every thing itself internally. It can sometimes depend on an old-school community of producers which can imply working with a small enterprise consisting of a single professional “craftsman” and a handful of helpers working from a small facility. 

“What this means is they’re not doing much in terms of digitization, and it’s difficult to change that because they’re just used to working with pen and paper, basically,” Daedalus founder and CEO Jonas Schneider instructed TechCrunch. “So you have these very low-tech manufacturers supplying the most critical components for these extremely high-end products.”

Daedalus founder & CEO Jonas Schneider Picture Credit: Daedalus

Based in 2019, Daedalus makes use of related off-the-shelf {hardware} out there to any producer, however its particular sauce lies within the software program it deploys on prime to manage and optimize the “shop floor” — that’s, it automates lots of the handbook duties concerned in producing a selected half. So a buyer will ship their CAD (pc aided design) drawings as regular, and Daedalus develops these drawings to a completed half with automation permeating the method.

“It’s about orchestrating all of the workflows across the production, planning and scheduling of those running around on the factory floor doing the work,” Schneider mentioned.

For context, when manufacturing begins for a brand new “part” in a machine, there are sometimes dozens of steps and lots of of choices concerned that influence what tooling can be wanted, what settings to make use of to create the exact form and dimensions of the half, and so forth. And that is the place Daedalus enters the fray — its software program captures the manufacturing choices information of 1 “part,” and makes use of that to information the selections round how an analogous half is created sooner or later. So a barely greater valve, or a valve with an additional becoming, could be substantively the identical as an earlier half, thus Daedalus makes use of sample matching to use that earlier information to configure its machines for the brand new half.

In some ways, Daedalus extends the essential idea of 3D printing, which has been democratizing the manufacturing process for greater than a decade. However with machine studying smarts beneath the hood, it’s taking issues to the following stage — it’s like 3D printing on steroids.

“The comparison is very apt — as an outsider to this industry in the beginning, to me it seemed like custom manufacturing had [already] been solved with 3D printing. But it mostly comes down to technical limitations of the process,” Schneider mentioned. “With 3D printing, it nonetheless signifies that it is advisable design a brand new half particularly in order that it may be 3D-printed, and that really finally ends up being fairly an costly course of. However for the overwhelming majority of the commercial base, it’s not likely possible, and so they can’t do 3D printing as a result of it’s not exact sufficient, or the supplies will not be robust sufficient.

You may body what what we’re doing, in a way, as taking this concept from 3D printing and making use of it to industrial grade, high-end elements.”

The story thus far

Previous to Daedalus, Schneider was technical lead at OpenAI the place he was instrumental in getting the corporate’s robotics division off the bottom in 2016. Certainly, OpenAI could be higher recognized in the present day for its flagship ChatGPT AI chatbot, however the firm additionally operated a robotics unit which performed analysis into issues like solving a Rubik’s Cube with a robotic hand, a venture that Schneider was instantly concerned in.

OpenAI’s Rubik’s Dice hand Picture Credit: OpenAI

OpenAI in the end disbanded this team in 2021, however Schneider had spearheaded the software program engineering facet of operations for greater than three years earlier than he departed to begin Daedalus in 2019.

Whereas there have been numerous the explanation why Schneider ended up leaving to kind his personal startup, there was one expertise he encountered constructing the Rubik Dice hand which performed a bit half in his determination to launch Daedalus.

“At one point, the robot hand broke down and we had to get spare parts,” Schneider mentioned. “And guess what? They needed to be precision manufactured. So there were these machines just like ours today, but we had to wait months to get these parts. And I thought, why is it so hard to get spare parts here? All of this contributed to me looking at this whole manufacturing space a bit more.”

For now, Daedalus has a single 50,000 square-foot manufacturing facility manufacturing facility in Karlsruhe from the place it largely targets the German-speaking markets together with Austria and Switzerland. Within the close to time period, the plan is to develop to a second manufacturing facility in Germany, after which additional afield if demand is adequate.

“This is the blueprint factory, right? This is where we’re learning all of the systems and all of the knowledge and distilling it into our way of producing these parts,” Schneider mentioned. “And then in the long run, we’ll put these factories wherever our customers need them.”