Machina Labs, an artificial intelligence startup aiming to make manufacturing more flexible, has secured $40 million in a Series B funding round led by Siemens Venture Capital. The new capital will fuel Machina Lab’s mission to create autonomous robotics factories that can be rapidly reconfigured via software updates.

At Machina Labs’s facilities, swarms of mobile robots cooperate to form sheet metal components on demand. Rather than custom dies, the robots use AI-guided manipulators and presses to shape parts. Adaptive force and position control enables the bots to handle diverse materials and geometries.

This generalizable approach avoids downtime and production halts associated with hardware changeovers. New part designs only require updating the robot team’s software with corresponding shaping algorithms. Entire production lines can be altered almost instantly.

Machina Labs leverages simulation to generatefeasible fabrication sequences for novel parts. Powerful neural networks then refine the motion planning for optimal forming steps. By learning from experience across jobs, the cooperative robot fleet continuously enhances process efficiency.

“Machina Labs embodies the power of merging AI and industrial automation to unlock manufacturing agility at scale,” said Siemens lead investor Jochen Herrmann. “Their digital foundry platform has the potential to transform production facilities into flexible, future-proof assets.”

The new funding will expand Machina Labs’s robotics fleet to ramp up part volumes and throughput. Machine learning researchers will also collaborate with Siemens to strengthen simulation, control, and optimization abilities.

Founder Edward Chen envisions each Machina Labs facility as an intelligent hub supplying customized components on demand across a region. The company’s agile factories aim to compress supply chains and enable mass personalization.

Chen said, “This investment from Siemens empowers us to scale our robotic blacksmiths into a distributed manufacturing network. By leapfrogging conventional production bottlenecks, Machina Labs aims to drive the next industrial revolution.”