IndustrialMind.ai, a company founded by former Tesla manufacturing AI leaders, announced that it has raised $1.2 million in pre-seed funding to support the broader deployment of its AI Engineer product across global manufacturing environments. The round included participation from Antler, TSVC, Plug and Play, and an angel investor.
The funds will be applied toward accelerating both product development and customer implementation of IndustrialMind.ai’s AI Engineer, a system designed to help factories improve yield, increase throughput, and shorten timelines for new product introduction. The platform is capable of converting engineering drawings into manufacturing processes, monitoring production lines in real time, identifying anomalies, and recommending adjustments that have been validated against operational equipment.
Manufacturers across various sectors have adopted robotics, automation, and digital monitoring systems. However, translating data into actionable decisions on the factory floor remains a challenge. IndustrialMind.ai’s founding team previously built an AI manufacturing platform at Tesla’s Gigafactories to address these bottlenecks. The company is now working to extend that operational decision-making architecture to the broader manufacturing sector, enabling factories to use AI as a direct collaborator rather than a static tool.
The AI Engineer handles workflows from drawing interpretation to production optimization. It can extract and structure data from engineering prints to generate bills of materials, routings, and should cost models within minutes. During production, it continuously monitors performance and quality signals, proposing and validating adjustments to maintain stable operations. When issues occur, its multi-agent root cause engine rapidly surfaces solutions and generates reports to close operational gaps faster than manual processes.
IndustrialMind.ai is already working with customers, including Siemens, tesa, and Andritz. The company uses a forward-deployed model, embedding the platform into each customer’s environment to deliver measurable performance outcomes within weeks of deployment.
The investors supporting the round include global early-stage and deep-tech firms focused on high-impact industrial innovation. Antler backs founders from day zero. TSVC is known for being the first investor in Zoom and focuses on core enterprise and industrial technologies. Plug and Play runs corporate innovation programs worldwide and invests across verticals.
IndustrialMind.ai supports manufacturers in North America and the Asia Pacific, aiming to help factories develop decision-making systems that replicate expert engineering judgment at scale.
KEY QUOTES:
“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.”
Steven Gao, Co-founder & CEO, IndustrialMind.ai
