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Manufacturing startup Hadrian Automation has raised $90 million to build a second autonomous factory in Torrance, with the goal of getting the new facility up and running by this summer.
Hadrian told CNBC that its planned 100,000-square-foot factory in Torrance—not far from its first factory location in Hawthorne—will be operational by this August. The startup, which aims to automate manufacturing processes for aerospace and defense companies, also plans to grow from 40 employees currently to around 120 by the end of this year.
The $90 million round—which appears to round out the $36 million that Hadrian reported raising in January, as dot.LA reported at the time—was co-led by Silicon Valley venture firms Andreessen Horowitz and previous backer Lux Capital. Investors Lachy Groom, Caffeinated Capital, Founders Fund, Construct Capital and 137 Ventures also participated in the funding.
As part of the deal, Andreessen Horowitz partner Katherine Boyle and Lux Capital partner Brandon Reeves will join Hadrian’s board.
“Chris’s realization after talking with hundreds of machine shops and even more machinists is the hard truth we can’t ignore: financial engineering doesn’t solve the core problem of making aerospace and defense parts faster and cheaper,” Boyle said in a statement provided to dot.LA. “You need to build automation and solve a complex engineering problem in the physical world to truly shore up the aerospace and defense supply chain.”
Hadrian CEO Christopher Power did not immediately return a request for comment. He told CNBC that the company now has three aerospace customers that build rockets and satellites for which Hadrian is manufacturing aluminum components, but did not disclose the companies’ names.
Hadrian wants to create factories that can automatically manufacture parts for rockets, satellites, jets and drones at a rapid pace with limited human interference. Power told CNBC that the startup’s existing factory in Hawthorne “can produce space and defense parts 10 times faster and more efficient than anyone else.”
“We’re not setting up factories that are like manufacturing lines—we’re building an abstract factory that you can drop any part into and it comes out the other side,” Power said. “As long as it fits within a certain size or certain material that we support, we can make anything within that.” The CEO added that Hadrian soon plans to expand its manufacturing offerings into hard metals like steel.
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As the “great resignation” continues, manufacturers are finding themselves shorthanded, and leaning towards automation to fill the gaps left behind by skilled workers.
Machine learning startup Elementary CEO Arye Barnehama thinks that’s where their software can fill in, doing visual quality inspections in manufacturing lines – a job now mostly filled by humans. The labor shortage, he said, has left companies in the lurch.
“There's so many background pressures on manufacturers, between labor shortages, and supply chain issues, and ecommerce, where you ship directly your customers,” said Barnehama, a Pomona College graduate said. “All of these things really add up to more pressure, and the need to be more repeatable and more automated.”
Launched out of Bill Gross’ Pasadena-based IdeaLab accelerator in 2017, Elementary is gearing up to rapidly expand its headcount and product offerings on the heels of raising a $30 million Series B raise, led by Tiger Global.
Arye Barnehama, CEO of Elementary
Barnehama said the pandemic has accelerated the existing trend towards automating manufacturing plants.
He said prior to the pandemic, it took a lot more convincing to get plants on board with using Elementary’s no-code AI programs to do quality control.
“There was a lot more education needed pre-COVID on why (to use) cloud in manufacturing and now the cloud is really accelerating and growing in manufacturing, and they have strategies and architectures that the top manufacturers are looking to deploy,” Barnehama said. “That's been the biggest transition, and it's gone from education, to now a key feature that (manufacturers) want.”
Elementary’s AI lets assembly line operators do a detailed and rapid check of their parts, which isn’t possible at scale with individual humans checking each step of the process. The company touts attention to detail and speed as two of its key advantages and Barnehama said using technologies like Elementary can help manufacturers ship products faster.
A recent PitchBook report on the robotics industry found that the labor participation rate in the U.S. – the statistic used to estimate how much of the country is working – is 58.8%, still a few points shy of the pre-pandemic high of 61.1%. Basically, fewer people are returning to work, which Pitchbook attributed to “an increased demand for more flexible work arrangements.”
Overall sales of industrial robotics are going up, Pitchbook noted. Sales of robots in North America have totaled roughly $1.5 billion through the third quarter of this year, a new all-time high.
Automotive plants continue to be the main user of industrial robots, though other industries are catching up: Pitchbook’s report notes non-automotive orders have experienced the largest increase so far this year, rising 53% and proving that more industries are looking to get in on the trend.
But the move towards more automated jobs could signal bad news for workers. As businesses pour more money into innovation, it’s difficult to go backwards. As the New York Times recently noted, once a workplace introduces robots, it often doesn’t return to a mostly human workforce.
“The goal is to really enable and empower the teams that (manufacturers) do have, because they're already facing these shortages,” Barnehama said. “Our goal is to superpower the people that they do have, from a quality and remote inspection perspective. We are often deploying to use cases where they're just not monitoring or it's not possible to automate at this time.”
Tiger Global is a new investor in Elementary. Existing investors Fika Ventures, Threshold Ventures, Fathom Capital, Riot VC and Toyota Ventures also participated.
Following this raise, Elementary has raised $47.5 million to date. Part of the Series B will be used to expand its product offering and grow the team of 50 people at least three times that size, Barnehama said.
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For this week's episode of LA Venture, hear from Shahin Farshchi, partner at Lux Capital. Lux invests in emerging science and technology ventures at the outermost edges of what is possible. Farshchi has fascinating insight on automation, autonomous cars, AI and more.
Key Takeaways
- Lux is not afraid to invest pre-product, and sometimes pre-company. Lux will write $10 million to $15 million checks for top entrepreneurs or executives they believe in, even if their company doesn't exist yet.
- Farshchi has seen an increase in deep-tech founders with typically capital intense companies, partnering with investors early in order to access deep pockets from day zero, instead of later in the fundraising timeline.
- Farshchi expects that while the trend of automation will continue and will lead to job elimination, those jobs are usually tough to fill, and the new jobs created will be easier to fill and more attractive. That said, he believes workers must be educated by employers and educational institutions to be ready for the next generation of jobs.
Shahin Farshchi is a partner at Lux Capital and has a PhD in electrical engineering. He empowers entrepreneurs aiming to accelerate humanity towards a brighter future through feats of engineering. He is passionate about artificial intelligence, robots, space, cars and engines—pretty much anything you might find in an episode of "Star Trek."
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