Austin, Texas · Physical AI for manufacturing

The physical agent harness for programmable manufacturing.

ELI HIVE is a programmable microfactory — HIVE CELLS on the floor, the HIVE MIND running them as one. Built for critical reshored American manufacturing, and built on compounded learning.

Request access Explore the alpha demo

$20MLive facility

10K sq ftELI's floor at HICAM

10–10,000Units a year, the band we serve

Q4 2026First cell

HIVE MIND · working MVP Isometric render of a hexagonal robotic HIVE manufacturing cell — white robotic arm fabricating a copper impeller inside a glass-enclosed hex workstation with control interface and material feed

Isometric render of a hexagonal robotic HIVE manufacturing cell — white robotic arm fabricating a copper impeller inside a glass-enclosed hex workstation with control interface and material feed

01 · Problem

Record reshoring demand is landing on a shrinking industrial base.

Demand is coming home just as factories age out, experienced labor retires, and fixed automation remains too rigid for modern product cycles.

+65%

Greater demand in the U.S.

Supply chains started reshoring since 2010. U.S. manufacturing output grew only 1% despite 2M announced jobs.

-27%

Fewer places to make it

U.S. foundries closed in a decade. Machine-shop establishments declined 9.5% over the same period.

1.9M

No one left to hire

U.S. manufacturing jobs projected unfilled by 2033. Over half of shop owners are 55+; about 70% of machinists are over 45.

Source: Reshoring Initiative · Kearney Reshoring Index · Thomas

Don't re-tool. Re-route.

Between the workbench and hard tooling — 10 to 10,000 units a year — sits a dead zone few incumbents serve. That missing middle is the most valuable real estate in manufacturing.

Reference point: hard tooling runs $150K–$5M per station to per line, on a 36–50 week build.

01 · Problem

Manufacturing knowledge is trapped in the wrong places.

The market forces teams to choose between scale without adaptability and flexibility without repeatability.

Industrial standard

Rigid but efficient

Optimized for volume — knowledge is built into the line.

ELI HIVE flywheel

Harnessed and repeatable

Connected, coordinated, and repeatable — knowledge compounds at the orchestration layer.

Shop standard

Flexible but fragile

Knowledge is held by the skilled people who run the equipment.

02 · Solution // The product

Don't standardize the product. Standardize the container.

The HIVE CELL is hardware on the manufacturing floor — a hex container that wraps proven OEM equipment with everything an agent needs to act on: services, vision, sensors, edge compute, and one standardized interface. The HIVE MIND is the software layer running the entire operation: living software built on compounding learning.

The HIVE

The reconfigurable microfactory

Any product, any process, on one floor. Cells dock into a live line the HIVE MIND orchestrates end to end.

HIVE CELLS

The physical agent harness

Any machine, made AI-addressable. Vision, sensors, edge compute, and a machine- and ERP-agnostic interface on every face.

HIVE MIND

The AI orchestration layer

Author, design, run, learn. The software layer that runs the whole floor — a working MVP, demonstrated live.

PROCESS MEMORY & EDGE COMPUTE

Standard work, build history, and process knowledge

MACHINE VISION & SENSORS

Tools, fixtures, and test interfaces that enable action

SAFETY & QUALITY GATES

Built-in safety, verification, and quality assurance

HUMAN + COBOT ORCHESTRATION

Real-time coordination of people, cobots, and workcells

Explore the alpha demo Meet the team & assets

03 · Wedge case

Don't let your hardware startup die on the manufacturing floor.

From predictable failure to successful product evolution.

Our wedge customer is the dual-use drone and critical-infrastructure startup preparing to go to manufacturing. We develop the recipe and the plan for their go-to-market manufacturing.

As they scale up, we capture their bridge manufacturing as a service.

1 DESIGN

Specs, tolerances and tooling anchored up front

2 BUILD

Machines and cobots run from the recipe

3 TEST

Every run instrumented; quality auto-captured

4 LEARN

Yields and fixes persist as process memory

5 REVISE

Recipe updates and reruns compound gains

↺ Back to design

Every revision returns to design — the loop is the product.

Without ELI HIVE

Production planning failures stay buried until time and resources are already gone, and the startup fails to establish scale manufacturing.

With ELI HIVE

Compounded learning surfaces failures early, and our manufacturing-as-a-service model efficiently moves the startup into scale production.

04 · Market

Short-run demand is landing on a base that can't absorb it.

American precision manufacturing is a $60B+ base built for a different era of product cycles. We serve the volumes it was never structured to serve — 10 to 10,000 units a year.

The base · $60B+

U.S. high-mix machining

~17,400 U.S. machine shops doing high-mix, low-volume parts work
~$40B is aerospace & defense precision work

Source: U.S. Census CBP 2022 · GAO FY2024 · Contrary Research 2025 · PitchBook-NVCA · Crunchbase · Xometry FY2025 10-K

The unfair starting position

We didn't just design this. We already built the place it runs.

Most teams pitch a stack. ELI HIVE already operates one — a live facility, working software, and the first integrated cell in progress, all in Austin.

$20M

HICAM · live facility

A 50K sq ft advanced-manufacturing campus in Austin, run as a 501(c)(3). ELI operates in 10K sq ft of it, with an option on more.

MVP

Working software

The HIVE MIND is a working MVP, demonstrated live: author, design, run, learn.

Cell 1

First integrated harness

A KUKA KR60 is installed at HICAM and integration is underway. First cell targeted Q4 2026.

HICAM is a related 501(c)(3) founded by ELI's founders. Facility, rent and services are set at fair market value and papered by outside counsel.

The model

We run the lines. We sell the parts.

Customers buy production — first runs, standing output contracts, bridge production — not a software license. The value of automated manufacturing accrues to whoever runs the operation, and every run on our floor trains the HIVE MIND. Output revenue and the data moat compound together.

01 First-run engagements

Manufacturability analysis, line design in the HIVE MIND, and a first production run that delivers real parts. Priced per engagement.

02 Ongoing production contracts

First runs convert to standing output contracts on ELI-operated HIVE lines, under our quality system.

03 Bridge-production hosting

We run production at HICAM for companies that need parts before they want a factory.

04 Strategic design partners

A small number of co-development HIVE MIND deployments with partners who extend the platform. Deliberately not the revenue engine.

The wedge

A beachhead already in motion

Startups coming through HICAM, a relationship with NextFlex, and a network across the Austin hardware and defense ecosystem point to the first pilots.

HICAM funnelNextFlexAustin defense ecosystem~500 teams/yr reaching production

Where this goes next

The roll-up

Acquire precision shops with retiring owners and run them on the HIVE. Series A+ capital deployed against a proven operating layer.

Maritime defense industrial base

Deployable HIVE lines modernizing the Tier 3/4 supplier floor, proven first on commercial production.

Request access

See the platform and the floor.

Tell us a little about you and we'll set up a walkthrough of the HIVE MIND alpha and the work underway at HICAM. Investors and design partners welcome.