Where and how did you get the idea to found the company?
During his time at the world’s leading AI company OpenAI in San Francisco, our founder Jonas Schneider developed, among other things, a robotic hand that could solve a Rubik’s Cube one-handed. Wanting to use the expertise he gained to solve the most significant industry problem possible, he then investigated potential application areas as part of the Y Combinator Startup Program in San Francisco. Manufacturing proved to be an ideal market, as it represents a gigantic industry that at the same time lags tremendously behind and is incredibly outdated, especially in the precision area.
How did the founding team come together?
Jonas Schneider, who studied at the KIT in Karlsruhe before joining OpenAI and Stripe, started looking for other team members to join him.
to start Daedalus right after his idea. Two other KIT alumni from Silicon Valley and another manager from OpenAI joined the team.
Where do you see the hurdles on the way to a successful company? Where did you get support?
On the technology side, we have to solve enormously demanding challenges, which is why our tech team consists of software and robotics engineers from companies like Google, SpaceX, OpenAI or Cruise. On the manufacturing side, we’re dealing with super tight tolerances and manufacturing-specific issues, which is why we brought on board several manufacturing veterans. On the business side, we need to grow extremely fast to achieve our ambitious goals, which is why we rely on the expertise of our talented growth experts on the one hand and have brought on board Addition and Khosla, two of the world’s most successful technology investors who have scaled countless technology products very successfully in the past.
