Hard Tech Startups funded by Y Combinator (YC) 2024

Helion is creating the world’s first fusion power plant, enabling a future with unlimited zero-carbon electricity.

SRTX builds new materials and software to enable better textiles. SRTX is best known for its first technology, Sheertex, a knit made from one of the world's strongest polymers which has disrupted hosiery through impossibly strong pantyhose.

We're building a mobile and wearable digital wallet that makes interacting with payments, identity, and authentication seamless, fun, and empowering. Acquired by OURA in 2023

Zelos Cloud is accelerating electronics product development with powerful tools for emulation, tracing, and automated testing on real microcontrollers in the cloud. As firmware engineers, we spent years developing and shipping products at scale. Between batteries, bootloaders and brain implants, we've seen it all. Our mission is to build the tools we wish we had to enable teams to ship higher quality products, faster.

Get instant diagnosis for the vast majority of neurological conditions using our Foundational AI.

We use the printing methods used for newspapers, packaging, posters, and other graphic media to make beautiful, emissive electronic displays with high-end OLED technology aimed at low-cost applications. Our displays are paper-thin, flexible, and can be easily custom printed in a variety of shapes and sizes, allowing hardware designers to use displays and indicators on curved surfaces and in new ways.

We achieve this through a unique blend of traditional coffee-making values—sourcing the best beans, understanding the nuances of roasting, and mastering the art of brewing—with cutting-edge technological innovation. Our cafes are not just spaces but experiences, where the artistry of the human barista is enhanced by the precision and efficiency of robotics. This synergy allows us to deliver consistently exceptional coffee, tailored to individual tastes, at a speed and scale previously unimaginable. But it's not just about the coffee. It's about the experience—the moment of pause in a busy day, the space for conversation, the ritual that centers us. Our technology doesn't replace the human touch; it amplifies it, making the luxury of a perfectly crafted cup of coffee accessible to everyone, everywhere. As we look to the future, our goal is to continue innovating, to push the boundaries of what a coffee company can be. We're not just serving drinks; we're creating a community united by a love for life. We're building a world where technology and tradition coexist, enhancing our lives and enriching our connections. One cup at a time, we're making the world a better place—through the universal language of coffee.

We are developing a new paradigm for consumer health tech wearables by replacing a 100lb optical instrument with an area of silicon smaller than a postage stamp.

Atomic's mission is to replicate high-skill trade knowledge of tool and die makers into AI that powers new manufacturing systems which are orders of magnitude more productive.

Alba Orbital is building the world's largest earth observation constellation, imaging everywhere on earth, every 15 minutes. We can see events within minutes such as wildfires in real time and have signed >$85m of LOIs, with both government and commercial customers paying pre-orders for imagery. To date we have launched 41 satellites into orbit (more than any other seed stage company in history), with more launching in 2024 onwards. We have launched a number of technology demonstration imaging satellites called Unicorns, which are the world's most advanced satellite under 1kg ever flown in orbit.

Vena Vitals makes a small sticker that monitors blood pressure continuously. We've shown that it works in the operating room and is as accurate as the best tools doctors have today, at a fraction of the cost. We're a team of health tech scientists with multiple past startups and exits, and we've built products that have scaled to over 2M users.

Holy Grail removes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to contribute to the long-term sustainability of humans and other species on Earth

Albedo is developing low-flying satellites that will capture visible and thermal imagery at the highest resolution commercially available. By making aerial quality imagery globally available, easy to purchase, and transparent to task, we aim to catalyze market growth and spur new applications. The world is rapidly changing and a new level of visibility and transparency is required to solve some of our largest problems. Albedo’s 10cm visible and 2m thermal imagery will fuel insights for industries such as mapping, insurance, utilities, solar, agriculture, carbon offsets, infrastructure sustainability, national security, and much more.

Effortlessly display modern web-content everywhere. Think of Java, but for web-content and JavaScript. Available for desktop apps, game consoles, embedded device displays, servers, and more.

We're building autonomous robots to make surgery more consistent, error free, and efficient. Nick is a 3x founder from medtech who co-founded a $1 billion company. Kartik is a 3x founder from autonomous vehicles who built and launched the world's first driverless truck. Surgical robotics companies are worth ~$200 billion total. AI will dominate the next generation of surgical robotics and we will be the first to build it. We're starting with a common urologic procedure that has by far the best outcomes but is not widely adopted due to technical difficulty.

Volta Labs is a genomics applications company that has developed a cutting-edge digital fluidics platform to maximize performance and scalability of sample preparation in genomics while providing unparalleled consistency. Volta is transforming the way biological research and analyses are performed, allowing scientists to focus on what they do best -- pushing the boundaries of biology. As a collective of scientists and builders working at the intersection of engineering and biology, we imagine a world where extracting vital information from biological samples is as simple as pressing a button. That's our vision, and we're turning it into reality. Our HQ is in Boston’s Seaport, where we develop and manufacture our technology. We believe in cross-functional collaboration and continuous learning – whether your interest is in biology, MechEng, CompEng, or simply joining a fast-growing startup striving to make the world a better place, we'd love to welcome you to our team. Check out some of our blog posts to learn more about work life at Volta.

Polymath is building a general autonomy stack for cautious vehicles. Our software allows any industrial vehicle - whether it's a tractor in a field or a bulldozer in a mine, drive itself. We bundle together AI, ML, Controls, ROS, Safety and best-in-class deployment practices to enable our customers to tell automated vehicles to do via a REST API. We're on more robots than we have engineers, are seeing our revenue (and robotic fleet) grow rapidly, and are looking for folks who want to help automate the world.

Combining nanotechnology with fundamental chemical engineering principles to accelerate the renewable energy revolution.

AstroForge is an asteroid mining company. Instead of bringing back the entire asteroid, we break it up, refine, and return only what’s valuable.

CircuitHub is on a mission to fix rapid electronics prototyping. We are the first automated electronics factory built around a modern tech stack. We help hardware companies producing self-driving cars, satellites, 3D printers, robotics, & more to rapidly prototype electronics and get to market faster.

Flux Auto is building autonomous vehicle technology to fully automate the movement and operation of forklifts in warehouses. This removes dependency on human commercial drivers, allowing logistics companies to increase productivity while reducing operating costs.

Our technology enables li-ion batteries to charge extremely fast while retaining long cycle life using smart control algorithms.

We build engines that have the potential to slash 33% or worldwide CO2 emissions - cost-effectively. First, we help food and mining companies cut both their heat costs *and* CO2 emissions by replacing gas-fired steam boilers with our proprietary high temperature heat pumps. Our heat pumps make up to 3x more heat with the same amount of electricity, even at up to 1000°F. Once the heat pump market is mature, we will address the seasonal energy storage market. Our storage units are based on the exact same proprietary engine we use for our heat pumps. They work with solar and wind, and replace lithium-ion batteries, fossil-fired power plants, CO2 capture and storage, and fuel procurement, with a cheaper, sustainable and more reliable alternative, which can be sited anywhere. The first opportunity is a high-margin market worth 3% of worldwide CO2. The second is a much bigger market worth 30% of worldwide CO2. By the time all cars become electric, it will be even more. Our key is we are building the first Stirling engine to reach 86% of the Carnot efficiency, compared to 64% for the state of the art. We do all that while significantly decreasing costs, and increasing reliability. Please see Airthium's website for more information.

Atomic Alchemy is building a bank of reactors to produce the nuclear material that goes into nuclear medicine. Radiopharmaceuticals are vitally important in biological tracers, diagnostic imaging, and cancer treatments. Currently, the world's supply of Molybdenum-99, the cornerstone of 80% of all nuclear medicine procedures, is sourced from just six government-run, scientific research reactors abroad. Five of these reactors are 45-65 years old and are quickly coming to the end of their operational life. This has cultivated a fragile and lengthy supply chain, at odds with the nature of radioactive material. This issue and its implications do not just effect molybdenum, but any other reactor-based isotope. Many promising cancer therapies are stuck in clinical trials, unable to secure enough material in a timely manner. Research doesn’t even happen because of the difficulty of sourcing any new isotopes. It doesn't have to be this way. Atomic Alchemy is working to solve this by building the world's first scalable radioisotope production facility. This facility will contain the world’s first privately-owned nuclear reactors dedicated to radioisotope production.

We help truckers cut delivery times, increasing productivity and adding much needed capacity to the freight industry. We do this by building autonomy software that tag-teams with human drivers. Conventional trucks drive ~120K miles/ year. Trucks with our tech can hit more than 190K miles/ year.

Observant is an iPhone-based driver monitoring system for commercial fleets. It uses machine learning + iPhone's depth sensors to detect unsafe driver behavior, prevent accidents, and save lives.

Sticky problems are ubiquitous. Surface fouling due to ice, sludge, snow, bacteria -- even human waste! -- leads to problems across industries. Car sensors don't work when contaminated with mud or snow. Barnacles on ship hulls reduce fuel efficiency. Ice on airplane wings is hazardous. While each industry has its own unique problems, they all require regular cleaning, repair, or replacement of their surfaces to address surface fouling. They therefore share a common pain: surface fouling is expensive! Our coating prevents surface contamination and the associated consequences. Currently our coatings work best on glass, metal, and ceramic surfaces.

Teleo converts construction heavy equipment, like dozers and loaders, into semi-autonomous robots. This enables a single operator to remotely operate multiple machines while sitting at a remote control center, unlocking productivity gains for the General Contractor.

Ardis AI extracts information from your unstructured text data and automatically generates a knowledge graph that can be browsed and queried, by web app or by API. Users can ask complex questions about the content of your text data, and Ardis responds with the answers and the evidence -- even when the information needed to answer the questions comes from multiple documents. Ardis also provides summary views of the topics discussed in your data. Coming soon: an Ardis plug-in for Elasticsearch, and support for natural languages questions.

Greywing is a platform for ship operators to automate their business, through actionable intelligence, better data and communication. Greywing today serves three product lines to customers: *Flotilla* is a monitoring tool for vessels, enabling vessel managers to identify fleet-level patterns and optimizations and to identify risk and liability vectors in advance. *CRY4* is an operational tool for individual vessels that allows crew managers, security officers and masters to gather intelligence about a vessels current or proposed route, making decisions about the safest and the cheapest ports of call that a vessel can be directed to. *Landfall* is a crew management and analysis system to provide risk reporting and detailed editing capabilities about the crew on-board a vessel. *Semaphore* is a port-agent communications tool meant to simplify the process of interfacing with large numbers of port agents while planning a port call.

Care Weather collects the highest-accuracy global weather data to help governments and shipping companies adapt to extreme weather. The data is collected by Care Weather’s unique flat-panel radar satellite, which is 1000X more cost effective because it’s vertically integrated, gets more solar power, and sails on top of the atmosphere for a closer view of the surface. Our team includes CEO Patrick Walton (NASA Earth science fellow) and CTO Alex Laraway (mach 4 rockets). In the last 4 months, we built and launched the smallest radar satellite ever. We have $35M worth of LOIs, including one from the Air Force and others from cargo shippers. Care Weather is backed by Boost VC, Kickstart Seed Fund, Y Combinator, and more.

Seabound builds carbon capture equipment for ships. We're the only way for existing ships to reduce up to 95% of CO2 emissions and meet new global regulations.

Our planes fly 10 times further than battery electric alternatives, with a lower operating cost than fossil fuel powered aircraft. Our first product is a 15 seat aircraft with a range of 800 km that enters service in 2026 with launch customer Skytrans. Our team has over 85 years of aerospace experience and have developed, flight tested and certified aircraft at Google X, magniX, Heart Aerospace, Ampaire, Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier and Gulfstream. We have $145M in aircraft LOIs from 7 airlines in the US, Europe and Australia.

Auricle is a medical device company building a breakthrough neurostimulation implant to restore hearing in millions of patients who no longer benefit from hearing aids, get less than 60% on a word recognition test, but aren't prepared to make the jump to a cochlear implant. Our approach preserves remaining natural hearing through a reversible and less invasive surgery, addressing the key concerns that hold most patients back from getting a cochlear implant (currently the only treatment option for these patients). The company spun out of Stanford Biodesign having completed two acute human clinical studies demonstrating the approach will work. The team is now focused on developing their full implant system for their first clinical trial. Auricle addresses a currently unserved profile of hearing loss that affects a growing population of 3.5 million patients in the US and represents an immediately accessible $1.2B market opportunity with existing reimbursement.

We combined microfluidic chip technology and a reagent cartridge to create the first personal DNA synthesizer. Until now most life scientists had to rely on out-sourced DNA synthesis, causing stagnating research. Kilobaser empowers every life scientist to synthesize DNA on their benchtop.

Odys Aviation (formerly Craft Aero) builds vertical take-off and landing aircraft for major airlines. We cut travel time in half on the world’s busiest routes by using city helipads and local airports. The company founders are electric propulsion and automotive manufacturing experts who have spent their careers electrifying transportation systems at Virgin Hyperloop, GoogleX, Volvo, and Fisker Automotive. We’ve won two USAF Agility Prime contracts, have pre-orders and options for more than 1,000 aircraft.

Meticulous is a tool to automatically catch UI bugs in your web application with zero-effort. Install our JavaScript snippet onto production or staging and dev environments, which records user sessions by collecting clickstream and network data. When you post a pull request, Meticulous selects a subset of sessions which are relevant and simulates these against the frontend of your application. Meticulous takes screenshots at key points and detects any visual differences. It posts those diffs in a comment for you to inspect in a few seconds. This eliminates the setup and maintenance burden of UI testing.

Humane Genomics has developed a platform to engineer cancer killing viruses. We have taken a first principles approach to design and make oncolytic viral therapies. Using a highly lytic RNA virus engineered with "2 factor authentication" (using selective infection and selective replication) they have an on-target to off-target kill ratio > 1000. We are working on our first indication, pediatric liver cancer (hepatoblastoma), with our partners at Texas Children's Hospital, who are world leading experts. We have in vivo (mouse) data showing safety and currently developing efficacy data and are showing 50% reduction in tumor volume.

We make devices that help cancer patients prevent the side effects of cancer treatment, including hair loss, neuropathy and infertility. Our first product, Lily, is a wearable cap that enables chemotherapy patients to prevent hair loss in a comfortable, portable way, while our second product, Lilac, is the world's first device to prevent the peripheral nerve damage caused by cancer treatment.

There are over 70 million low accuracy tests done in US every year for conditions like the flu. Labsimply is using novel CRISPR enzymes to replace these with Point-of-care tests that offer PCR accuracy in 5 minutes or less.

Wyvern is a space data company that will capture the highest resolution hyperspectral images from satellites that cost 100X less than satellites using traditional telescopes.

Hubble is building a global satellite network that any Bluetooth-enabled device can connect to, even without cellular reception. Our mission in life is to get a billion devices connected to the network and unlock a new era of human-machine collaboration.

We bring Tesla autonomous manufacturing to every automaker and other producers. At Tesla, we were the core autonomous factory team and we’re now building the smart cameras and robotic guidance tools that provided the main advantages at Tesla

Yondu develops models that allow robots to understand and intelligently carry out complex commands. The models are trained on data across various robotic platforms on different modalities of tasks. The models serve as a control policy for devices that need to make decisions, whether they be drones for reconnaissance, robot dogs for inspections, or cameras for smart surveillance. Yondu offers our models to robotics service providers through an API and license. Additionally, Yondu sells off-the-shelf hardware with our custom models to provide smart robots for tasks that benefit from improved human-robot interaction. Our first product is a drone you can control with your voice.

Palitronica builds and deploys cutting-edge solutions to defend critical physical infrastructure and its supply chain. By using side-channel information from endpoints, Palitronica provides a safe attack detection capability retrofittable to critical systems.

Enlightra develops mass-manufacturable fingertip-size multicolor lasers enabling ultrafast data communication and optical computing while providing up to 10x improvement in energy efficiency and cost reduction.

Andson Biotech helps pharmaceutical companies measure difficult to detect chemicals that they need to measure while developing and manufacturing drugs like cell-therapies or biologics. Drug companies want to use our technologies to get fast and accurate chemical measurements they do thousands of times per day for drug development and quality control.

Yatima is a verifiable computing platform which uses formal proofs and zkSNARKs to make software safer.

AirMyne is building machines to capture & remove carbon dioxide from ambient atmospheric air so it can be utilized or sequestered downstream. Our team is based in Berkeley, CA.

Integrated Reasoning builds efficient computer processors that are tailored to the memory access patterns of Karp's 21 NP-complete problems. We’re making it 100x - 10,000x faster to perform computations like scheduling airline pilots or optimizing packing layouts for shipping containers.

We build automated robots for concrete floor construction. One person with our robots does the work of 6 construction workers.