Foundry raises $100M to build autonomous factory for assembly

US-based startup Foundry Robotics has announced its oversubscribed USD 100 million Series A funding round led by Marlinspike Partners. Participating in the round are early backers Khosla Ventures and Red Glass Ventures, and new investors SE Ventures, Wing VC, and Axiom Ventures, as well as existing investors Hanabi and Zero Shot Fund, according to a press release.

Foundry builds and operates autonomous factories for complex assembly, combining AI-powered robotic cells with experienced manufacturing experts. With the new funding, Foundry will build out its Emeryville facility, accelerate deployment of AI models into real-world manufacturing, and grow its robotics research, engineering and factory operations teams, the company said.

Foundry has expanded its manufacturing footprint twentyfold to a 130,000-square-foot facility in Emeryville. The company currently serves defense and commercial industries, focusing on high-value, complex electro-mechanical products where production is constrained. Applications include drones, autonomous vehicle subassemblies, wire harnesses, underwater vehicles, telecom/data center infrastructure, ground robots, rugged computers, robot compute boxes, satellites, and more.

“Our approach is to own the entire final assembly stack and integrate intelligence at every layer — own the buildings that manufacture for our customers while orienting them for robotics deployment,” said Adarsh Kulkarni, Founder and CEO of Foundry Robotics. “Our mission is to revitalize U.S. manufacturing and create more capacity to build and scale critical product assembly.”

Traditional assembly lines are built around a single product, take months to deploy, and are costly to reconfigure. Foundry says it takes a different approach, leveraging physical AI to build flexible assembly capacity that deploys quickly, adapts to different products, and scales with demand.

“Production capacity is a national constraint on getting unmanned systems to the fleet,” said Duane Fotheringham, President, HII Unmanned Systems. “Foundry's approach to autonomous assembly is exactly the kind of capability the defense industrial base needs right now.” 

“Defense and industrial equipment manufacturers urgently need more domestic assembly capacity, and Foundry is delivering,” said Mislav Tolusic, Managing Partner at Marlinspike. “Their AI-powered factory offers scalable and flexible assembly capacity. We are impressed with the speed that Adarsh and Emmanuel are executing — assembling an impressive team, commissioning the first factory, and quickly signing customers.”