Arda Industries, a San Francisco startup founded by former OpenAI chief research officer Bob McGrew, came out of stealth on Tuesday, Oct. 20, with a $160 million Series A at a $1.5 billion valuation.
Why it matters: Arda says its AI can cut the months it takes to retool a factory when a product design changes, which it argues is a big reason fast-changing products like phones are built in Asia rather than the U.S.
The deal
- Altimeter, Accel and Khosla Ventures co-led the Series A, with XYZ Venture Capital, 8VC, SV Angel and Felicis joining, the company said.
- It follows a $72 million seed round led by Accel and Founders Fund, bringing total funding to $232 million.
What it does
Arda's AI agent reads a product's CAD files and works out the assembly order, work instructions and station layout. "It's a user interface and an agent that does for manufacturing engineers what Claude or Cursor does for programmers," McGrew told CNBC.
Defense company Anduril already uses Arda in its manufacturing software. Basic work instructions that took 10 hours now take 15 minutes, and complex workflows that took up to 30 hours take about 2.5 hours, the company said.
Arda is starting with defense and data center equipment makers, then plans to move into consumer electronics. Robotics is next: it is prototyping AI agents that program robots to carry out its assembly plans.
Who is behind it
McGrew led OpenAI's research team from 2018 to 2024 and earlier led product and engineering at Palantir. His co-founders are Augustus Odena, who co-founded Adept, and former Palantir engineers Alex Mark and Jakob Frick.