Machina Labs Raises $32M for AI-Driven Manufacturing

Machina Labs today said it has closed Series B investment of $32 million to fund the expansion of AI-driven manufacturing.

The Los Angeles-based company stated that it will use the new investment to meet growing customer demand, support research initiatives, and continue the development of new technologies in response to customer requirements.

NVentures, NVIDIA’s venture capital arm, and Innovation Endeavors co-led the funding round, according to the announcement. Additional contributions from other new and existing vendors brought the total raised by Machina Labs to $45 million.

“With their deep heritage in artificial intelligence and high-performance computing, we are looking forward to NVIDIA’s support as we further develop our AI and simulation capabilities,” said Edward Mehr, co-founder and CEO of Machina Labs.

“This Series B funding underscores the transformative potential of merging robotics and artificial intelligence,” he said. “With this support, we are poised to develop the next generation of manufacturing floors -- ones that can easily remake production with no hardware or tooling changes, but only requiring software modification.”

Innovations to enable configurable production

Machina Labs claimed that its software allows factories to no longer to be tied to specific products. Instead, they can configure production on demand.

The company said it plans to use its latest funding to support the AI and robotics aspects of that on-demand manufacturing, which it said will allow customers to complete metal products in days rather than weeks or months.

“Over the past two years, Machina Labs has demonstrated the impact and scalability of combining robotics and AI in manufacturing,” said Sam Smith-Eppsteiner, a partner at Innovation Endeavors.

“We are thrilled to double down on our investment in Machina on the back of demonstrated execution, technology gains, and commercial traction,” he said. “We expect Machina to play an important role in a number of key industrial trends of the next decade: domestic re-industrialization, defense innovation, electrification, and commercial space.”

Mohamed “Sid” Siddeek, corporate vice president and head of NVentures, added that “AI is rapidly accelerating industries across the global economy, including manufacturing.”

“Machina Labs’ work to apply advanced computing and robotics to sheet-metal formation enables companies to operate manufacturing facilities with substantially improved efficiency and broadened capabilities,” he said.

Machina Labs automates metal manufacturing.

Machina Deployable System is commercially available

Machina Labs’ funding round came shortly after its announcement of the commercial availability of the Machina Deployable System for metal forming.

Founded in 2019 by aerospace and automotive industry veterans, the company said its main goal is to develop modular systems that can be easily reconfigured through software to suit a variety of manufacturing uses and minimize operational disruptions. Machina explained that its efforts to combine AI and robotics to rapidly manufacture advanced composite and metal products supports that goal.

Earlier this year, Machina Labs announced a similar investment from Yamaha Motor Ventures. At the time, Yamaha said it invested in Machina Labs because of its ability to "rapidly iterate, improve, and manufacture metallurgic products."

In its previous funding announcement, Machina Labs said it uses robots the way a blacksmith uses a hammer. The company said it is seeking to creatively manufacture different designs and material, bringing more flexibility and agility to the manufacturing industry.