Pre-seed funding will bring the AI Engineer to more factories, helping manufacturers work smarter and scale faster.

IndustrialMind.ai, an AI company founded by former Tesla manufacturing AI leaders, announced a $1.2 M pre-seed round to advance its mission of helping every factory become best-in-class. Investors in the round include Antler, TSVC, Plug and Play, and an angel investor. The funding will accelerate development and customer deployment of IndustrialMind.ai’s “AI Engineer,” with capabilities ranging from drawing-to-process automation to real-time monitoring and root-cause analysis, improving yield, increasing throughput, and shortening new-product-introduction timelines.

Despite broad adoption of robotics and digital tools on the shop floor, converting data into timely operational decisions remains difficult—especially during rapid ramps and complex new-product launches. Having built an AI manufacturing platform that solved critical bottlenecks at Tesla’s Gigafactories, the founding team is now bringing that decision-making brain to the broader industry: an AI system that understands drawings and process data, recommends concrete adjustments, and helps validate impact on real equipment. The effort focuses on rebuilding the decision-making center of modern manufacturing and redefining the factory of the future.

“Engineers already have enough tools. They need a truly trustworthy teammate, an AI Engineer. The ultimate engineer on the factory floor combines manufacturing judgment with AI capabilities and delivers verified, actionable changes,” said Steven Gao, Co-founder & CEO of IndustrialMind.ai.

“I invested because this is a rare team that knows both high-volume manufacturing and state-of-the-art AI,” said the round’s angel investor. “They’ve solved real bottlenecks on real lines. IndustrialMind.ai is bringing that playbook to the broader industry.”

IndustrialMind.ai’s AI Engineer spans the path from print to performance. It understands drawings to extract features and automatically draft BOMs, routings, and should-cost quotes, turning “drawing to process” into a minutes-long step. On the line, it monitors production in real time, detects and predicts anomalies, and offers engineer-ready adjustments that keep processes stable and quality in control. When issues arise, a multi-agent root-cause engine blends knowledge and data to surface fixes and auto-generate reports, closing the loop far faster than manual methods.

IndustrialMind.ai is already deploying the AI Engineer with industry leaders including Siemens, tesa, and Andritz, and operates a forward-deployed model that embeds the product directly into each customer’s workflows and systems to deliver measurable value within weeks.

About the Investors

• Antler — A global early-stage venture capital firm that backs exceptional founders from day zero.
• TSVC — An early-stage deep-tech venture capital firm, known as the first investor of Zoom, backing foundational enterprise and industrial innovation.
• Plug and Play — The world’s largest innovation platform, running corporate innovation programs and accelerators globally and investing across multiple industries.

About IndustrialMind.ai

IndustrialMind.ai builds the AI Engineer for manufacturing that understands engineering drawings and production data, recommends and validates process changes, and lifts yield, throughput, and overall equipment effectiveness. Founded by former Tesla leaders, IndustrialMind.ai supports manufacturers across North America and Asia-Pacific.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251106135477/en/

“They’ve solved real bottlenecks on real lines. IndustrialMind.ai is bringing that playbook to the broader industry.”