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- RMFG has raised $4.5 million in pre-seed funding to bolster US manufacturing with AI.
- Its 32-year-old founder taught himself to code while working in gas station maintenance.
- RMFG wants to jump in on the white-hot robotics industry.
AI-powered manufacturing startup RMFG has raised $4.5 million to help revive US production.
RMFG was launched in July 2024 by Kenneth Cassel, a 32-year-old college dropout and Y Combinator graduate, as well as a father of four. Cassel grew up in a large, blue-collar family in Texas and taught himself to code while working maintenance at a gas station company.
"We're in this kind of renaissance where there's a lot of renewed interest in manufacturing," Cassel told Business Insider.
RMFG says it helps startups that don't want to deal with the costs of building their own facilities or face the security risks of going overseas.
Its AI-powered sheet metal factory, located in Dallas-Fort Worth, handles work that is usually done manually, using AI agents and other technologies to handle quoting, automate quality control, and tweak designs. This cuts lead times from months to weeks, the company said.
In the past, factory jobs lacked status, Cassel said, though technology has transformed the industry, and more people are interested in physical products "because they're seeing AI capabilities erode the value of pure software startups," he said.
RMFG is jumping in on the white-hot robotics industry, where most of its clients operate.
"These companies have raised venture capital, they're scaling, they're trying to build out really quickly," Cassel said. "Ultimately, I think it's going to be larger than automotive."
Y Combinator, Day One Ventures, and Soma Capital participated in RMFG's pre-seed round, along with angel investors Balaji Srinivasan, Patrick Collison, Charlie Songhurst, and Joshua Browder.
RMFG says it has shipped more than 100,000 parts in the last year and has about 200 customers, including drill-rig startup Durin, cloud-seeding company Rainmaker, and robotic fulfillment startup Nimble. It offers laser-cut sheet metal parts and plans to expand into additional services, Cassel said.
RMFG has nine employees — mostly in manufacturing. Cassel said the startup will primarily use funds to grow its technology team, which consists of himself and a founding engineer.
Here's a look at the pitch deck RMFG used to raise its $4.5 million pre-seed. Slides have been redacted so that the deck can be shared publicly.
