Bob McGrew, the former OpenAI chief research officer, publicly launched Arda Industries on 20 October. The company builds AI software that helps manufacturing engineers turn product designs into assembly plans and keep production instructions current as designs change.
Arda says its software is already deployed within Anduril's ArsenalOS manufacturing system. McGrew is co-founder and CEO; his fellow founders are Augustus Odena, Alex Mark and Jakob Frick. The company is also developing AI tools to program robots, with the aim of making automated assembly lines easier to reconfigure.
In its launch announcement, Arda disclosed a $160 million Series A at a $1.5 billion valuation, co-led by Altimeter, Accel and Khosla Ventures. Together with an earlier $72 million seed round, the financing brings its total raised to $232 million.