Embedded Ventures

An early-stage deep tech venture capital firm investing in startups in advanced manufacturing, digital engineering, and space operations.

[Zoo @zoodotdev]

Zoo Design Studio just got a major upgrade, constraint-driven sketching! 🎉

While AI has been one of our biggest differentiators, we’re also leveling up the core design experience, starting with faster, cleaner, more intuitive sketching.

Read more about what’s new: https://t.co/LzwkEaGRhD

[Zoo @zoodotdev]

Zookeeper giving us what we really want: an exploded view of @margorskyi's game controller model.

[Zoo @zoodotdev]

Our Zoo Design Studio Makeathon is officially open for submissions! 🚀

Haven’t registered yet? There’s still time to join.

We can’t wait to see what you design.
https://t.co/fzLVEOiSCM

[Zoo @zoodotdev]

Big news: We’re launching a virtual Zoo Design Studio Makeathon and registration is open! 🎉

Any industry, any problem, any idea worth sharing. If you’ve got a CAD model idea you’ve been wanting to make, this is your moment!

Register here → https://t.co/u1PiIL1evk

[Jordan Noone 🇺🇸 @jordannoone]

Image-to-CAD with a fully editable feature tree

[Zoo @zoodotdev]

Attach images and other files to Zookeeper with our 1.1.12 release.

Enables functionality like Image-to-CAD, generating a full feature tree.

[Zoo @zoodotdev]

Start with nothing. End with a designed part and an email draft for a machine shop quote.

@margorskyi's tutorial walks through the full workflow using Zookeeper.

https://t.co/mNRSPANiH3

[Jessie Frazelle @jessfraz]

The in-app agent is great for modifying your parts, researching, and knowing if the part can be manufactured, or give tips on DFM

[Zoo @zoodotdev]

Meet Zookeeper, our conversational CAD agent. ✨

[Skyryse @skyryse]

Status: Unicorn. 🦄

Today we’re announcing our $300M+ Series C raise, accelerating our path to certification and scaling our universal operating system for flight across helicopters and airplanes. This round was led by Autopilot Ventures (@HQAutopilot) and returning investor Fidelity Management & Research Company, with participation from new and returning investors ArrowMark Partners, Atreides Management LP (@Atreidesmgmt), @BAMelevate, @BaronCapital Group, Inc., Durable Capital Partners, Positive Sum, Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), RCM Private Markets Fund managed by Rokos Capital Management (US) LP, Woodline Partners, among others.

Surpassing $1B in valuation as a privately-held company, is a big milestone for us and a history-making moment for the industry. To date, we’re the only aviation technology company to reach this milestone while maintaining our independence and offering a technology for dual-use in defense and civilian markets. We’re especially proud of what this capital unlocks for safe, simple flight for everyone.

Learn more in @TechCrunch here: https://t.co/gHE7EnIZqL

[Embedded Ventures @EmbeddedVC]

🚁🫡

[Jordan Noone 🇺🇸 @jordannoone]

Congrats to @MarkGroden and the entire @skyryse team. @EmbeddedVC invested twice in 2021 after spending time with the team.

There have been many companies that have come, and many now gone with more joining them, proposing that the only way aviation would move forward is through EVOTLs. EVOTLs, a word made up to make them seem more distinct than "electric helicopter", are very silly! They require solving miracles on every system at once: flight weight high performance batteries, electric motors, global charging infrastructure, and more, all at the same time, in a highly regulated environment.

Mark had the straightforward approach of upgrading current rotorcraft design with modern controls, software, and autonomy before expanding the product offering into an even more straightforward application to fixed wing craft. Happy to see that playing out as planned.

[Embedded Ventures @EmbeddedVC]

@jordannoone @MarkGroden @skyryse 🫡

[SpaceX @SpaceX]

SpaceX has acquired xAI, forming one of the most ambitious, vertically integrated innovation engines on (and off) Earth → https://t.co/3ODfcYnqfg

[Zoo @zoodotdev]

Create a part with Text-to-CAD and add it straight into your assembly without leaving Zoo Design Studio.

Try it now → https://t.co/YasMvYUwNO

[Josef Feldman @josef_feldman]

What if hardware design didn’t require knowing the right terms? @j_d_noone says @zoodotdev's AI CAD tool handled Japanese prompts with no engineering jargon—accurately. Language-proof design could open creation to everyone.

Presented by @rhobusiness, backing global builders.

[Zoo @zoodotdev]

Unlock hybrid CAD design workflows using traditional sketching tools alongside Text-to-CAD in Zoo Design Studio.

Get started for free: https://t.co/Rxe4bH7QOV

[Zoo @zoodotdev]

“Shying away from difficult problems often leads us to be stuck with the same situations without learning from our past. Currently, we are opting to solve as many problems as we possibly can with our own CAD engine.”

Research by Mike, Alyn, and Serena
🔗 https://t.co/F7je51fG4c

[Andrew Côté @Andercot]

I used to be the lead designer for a stellarator fusion startup. Zoo is the tool I wish existed - here's why.

Modern design and simulations tools are tedious and segregated, and going from something that looks good in simulation to something manufacturable is itself an art of engineering experience. Design and simulations tools have become more feature-rich in recent years but haven't fundamentally changed all that much - its endless point-and-click operations.

ML has accelerated software development by 10-100x but mechanical design hasn't kept up.

There's two main methods by which hardware can become as fluid and quickly iterable as software:

- Accelerating the design and simulation tools
- Accelerating modular, flexible manufacturing methods

Here's the simple reason I'm proud to be an investor in @zoodotdev - it has the potential to hit both of these directly on the head.

There is no separation from design to manufacturing - this is why Bill Rich, who led Lockheed Martin's Skunkworks said engineers need to spend time with machinists - what might look good in a design might be impossible to manufacture, and small design tweaks can save a huge number of steps in tooling setup and machining methods.

Similarly, there's no separating design from simulations. In modern contexts these are in constant feedback to hit performance specs across thermal, mechanical, and electromagnetic domains using both FEA and CFD simulation tools.

At the heart of every design tools lies the Geometry Kernel, an often-under appreciated code behemoth that calculates the countless geometrical edge cases that enable a designer to put their ideas into mathematically defined geometries.

Yet the majority of design tools today haven't fundamentally changed in decades - its a point-and-click interface where a scripting back-end may be available, but is often far-separated from the users familiar actions.

What Zoo is fundamentally doing is several things:
- Creating the first new professional geometry kernel in decades from the ground up intended to be accelerated by ML automation in generating mathematically defined geometries aligned with the users intention

- Placing scripting and UI design methods on equal footing, so every UI design decision generates code automatically, natively training designers in how to think through a design programmatically.

And in the near future:
- Integrating simulations methods from FEA and CFD into the design process, so there is no clumsy translation back-and-forth with static STEP files between Solidworks / etc into COMSOL or ANSYS, where simulation-informed design changes require tediously re-assigning boundary conditions. Instead, a design can be simulated and optimized within the gradient space of its performance metrics automatically.

And further out than that?
- Piping the whole thing into manufacturing methods. Capture the designers intent, simulate to performance specs, and have contextual awareness of how something can be made, all in one process thats accelerated by ML.

Everything is downstream of the design process that seeks to achieve a performance metric, bounded by what can be manufactured. Starting with the design, then moving into simulations, and then manufacturing is how you go from

"Point and click tedious CAD"

to

"Jarvis, design a new repulsor jet"

Today the text-to-CAD may just be simple gears and components, but soon larger complicated assemblies. I wouldn't bet against the compounding returns on user-generated data in accelerating the performance of ML-enhanced design tools.

[JB @Jenna_Bryant]

It’s here... @zoodotdev's v1.0 of Zoo Design Studio! 🥳

Real CAD, not meshes. This is the CAD platform we’ve always wanted: fast, modern, and built from scratch, including our own geometry engine and Text-to-CAD.

Start using it for free → https://t.co/7A8yRZO8c0

[Zoo @zoodotdev]

We're thrilled to announce v1.0 of Zoo Design Studio is officially released! Get the full power of a professional CAD platform, enhanced with ML through Text-to-CAD.

🎉 Start using Zoo Design Studio now for free → https://t.co/7EpYICnrpV

Read @jessfraz’s blog post on the why, the how, and what you can expect on day one. (Spoiler: we wrote our own Geometry Engine, programming language, ML model, and CAD GUI)

🔗 https://t.co/VY4ZPvcPDU