Bright Machines Raised $400M+: How Lior Susan Carved a 170-Person Robotics Team Out of Flex

TL;DR: Bright Machines is a San Francisco company that uses robotic cells and software to automate the back end of electronics manufacturing, the assembly work that is still mostly done by hand. It was co-founded by Lior Susan, who is also the founder of Eclipse Ventures. It did not start in a garage. Susan carved a team of about 170 people out of the contract manufacturer Flex, signed Flex as the first customer, and launched publicly in October 2018 with a $179M Series A led by Eclipse (TechCrunch, October 2018). Its June 2024 Series C brought total funding to more than $400M, with Nvidia, Microsoft and BlackRock-managed funds in the round. Along the way it nearly went public through a SPAC, called it off, and shrank from 700 people to about 200. Susan told the story on The Product Market Fit Show. The episode aired in November 2024 (Season 3), so every figure he gave was as of then.

A note on sourcing. Anything labeled "as he shared on the show" comes from the interview and has not been independently confirmed. Funding and leadership facts labeled with a source and date were checked against press coverage and Bright Machines' own site in October 2026.

What does Bright Machines do?

Bright Machines automates the assembly of electronics such as servers, using flexible robotic cells and a software layer that tells those cells what to build. The company calls the cells BRCs, short for Bright Robotic Cells.

An electronics factory has two halves. The front end, called SMT, is where high-speed machines place chips on circuit boards. As he shared on the show, that part is already almost fully automated. The back end is where the boards, plastic housings, magnets and lights get put together into a finished product. He said that part is 98% human today.

The reason is variety. The front end does one job over and over: pick a chip, place it on a board. The back end changes with every product. An AirPods case, a MacBook and a GPU are all assembled differently, and a single factory floor can build many tens of products a year. Classic industrial robots were built to do one thing forever, which is the opposite of what the back end needs.

"We are not a robotics company. We are next generation manufacturing company. Robots are part of our stack." — Lior Susan, Bright Machines

The software is where Susan says the value sits. As he shared on the show, the robots collect data that human lines never captured, such as how much force goes into a part. Bright Machines feeds that data back to customers on supplier quality, cycle times and yield, and into a design tool meant to tell engineers how to design the next product so it is easier to automate. His long-term vision, which he said is still far off, is a "recipe" file that goes to 30 factories at once so the robots reconfigure themselves for a new product.

Key stat: as of October 2026, Bright Machines' own site reports 130+ microfactories and 300K+ total server output. It does not say over what period, so treat it as a company claim.

In 2025 the company described a shift to what it calls an intelligent manufacturing platform focused on AI and data-center hardware (company timeline, checked October 2026).

Who founded Bright Machines?

Bright Machines was co-founded by Lior Susan, who is now its chairman. Susan is also the founder of Eclipse Ventures, the venture firm that incubated and led the first round.

His path, as he told it on the show, runs through the Israeli special forces and a first startup with his younger brother. That company built software-defined networking for mobile carriers, and Cisco bought it in 2012 for $475M. He moved to the Bay Area for the integration and planned to leave after a few months to kitesurf in Brazil for a year.

At Cisco he met Mike McNamara, then CEO of Flex, Cisco's main contract manufacturer. Flex had about 300,000 people around the world, as he shared on the show. McNamara asked him to build a team that would incubate tech companies inside Flex. Susan called it "a gigantic playground." He created a group called Lab 9 and stayed more than three years.

The founding moment came on a visit to Flex's campus in Zhuhai, China, in 2013. About 80,000 people worked on that campus. He expected to see robots building products for Apple, Cisco and Johnson & Johnson.

"And I stepped to the floor and I see long lines of people standing next to each other." — Lior Susan, Bright Machines

When he asked the plant manager where the robots were, he was told robots were not flexible enough. He started a project inside Flex, code-named AEG for Advanced Engineering Group, to solve exactly that.

Susan left Flex in early 2015 to start Eclipse. In 2017 he went back to McNamara and the Flex board and asked to carve the AEG team out into a new company. That company was Bright Machines. When it launched in October 2018, former Autodesk co-CEO Amar Hanspal was its CEO (TechCrunch, October 2018).

Leadership changed several times after that. Susan became interim CEO in December 2021 when Hanspal stepped down. Chris Stori, a former Cisco executive, was named CEO in September 2024, with Susan staying on as chairman (Semafor, September 2024). As of October 2026, the company's leadership page lists Sviat Dulianinov, formerly its chief strategy officer, as CEO. I could not find the date of that change.

How much has Bright Machines raised?

Here is what can be confirmed, with the source for each.

• Series A, October 2018: $179M, led by Eclipse Ventures, announced alongside the public launch (TechCrunch, October 2018). As Susan shared on the show, the first round was "180 or so."
• SPAC deal, May 2021. Bright Machines agreed to go public by merging with the SPAC SCVX, a deal TechCrunch reported would bring in $435M. The two sides mutually ended it in December 2021, citing market conditions and the deadline (SCVX announcement, December 2021).
• Series C, June 2024: $126M, made up of $106M in equity led by funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, plus $20M in venture debt from J.P. Morgan. Nvidia, Microsoft, Eclipse, Jabil and Shinhan Securities took part in the equity (company announcement, June 2024).

Key stat: coverage of the June 2024 Series C put total funding at more than $400M.

Some data sites list a much higher total. They conflict with each other and with the press coverage, so I have left them out. As of October 2026, I found no confirmed round after the June 2024 Series C and no public valuation.

On revenue, as he shared on the show, Bright Machines was doing "many tens of millions" a year at the time of the interview.

How do you start a company with 170 people on day one?

Most founders start small. Susan did the opposite. When he finally convinced Flex to let the team go, it was about 170 people, as he shared on the show. He argued scale was not optional in this market.

"If you are going to start with two guys in a presentation, none of the largest companies in the world is going to let you touch their mass production product." — Lior Susan, Bright Machines

To get McNamara to say yes, he made two points. Flex would get equity in the new company, about 10% by his memory. And the company would need hundreds of millions of dollars for AI, robotics and computer vision engineers, which did not fit Flex's margin profile.

The carve-out itself was close to an acquisition. He had to sort out which people moved and to which entities, who owned the source code, patents and trade secrets, how to value the robots and production lines, and what the new company was worth. It was his first carve-out. "I was flying the plane while learning it," he said.

The most important piece was the customer deal.

"So we signed a multi-year agreement with them as the first customers." — Lior Susan, Bright Machines

As he shared on the show, Flex committed to "a couple of low tens of millions of dollars in revenue every year" for the first few years. That let the team spend its early years building the software, which he calls smart skills, instead of building a sales team.

He was honest that it was not perfect. Some sites wanted work that did not fit the roadmap, and Flex pushed back that it was paying for it. When McNamara left, it got harder. "It was pure trust game," he said. With the signed deal, the team and the vision in hand, he went to investors and pitched what he hoped would one day be a $100 billion company.

For more on this kind of deal, see how to get design partners and getting your first enterprise customer.

How did Bright Machines survive COVID, the SPAC and near-death?

The first technical goal was modest. Before end-to-end lines or anything like a foundation model for robots, the team had to match a human on single tasks: putting in screws, placing heat sinks and CPUs, gluing, welding, scanning.

"But the gold standard is this amazing machine. It's called human." — Lior Susan, Bright Machines

As he shared on the show, the first couple of years were about matching human units per hour and quality. Then beating them. Then chaining two processes, then more, growing the automated part of the floor step by step.

Then came COVID. "COVID was brutal," he said. A full-stack hardware company cannot build robots remotely. At the same time, it exposed how fragile human-run factories were, and demand for robotics jumped.

He also shared how close the company came to the edge.

"At the peak, we were 700 people and now we are about 200." — Lior Susan, Bright Machines

As he shared on the show, the company "almost spacked" about two and a half years before the interview. At the last moment he decided Bright Machines was far from ready to be a public company, said no to a very large financing, and made significant layoffs. He also said there was a stretch when the company had weeks of cash left.

He still has not settled the business model. Bright Machines sells robots as capital equipment with a software subscription, and also offers robotics as a service.

"I have yet to figure out the right business model, although we are doing many tens of millions in revenue." — Lior Susan, Bright Machines

His view is that if the full software vision works, the business model will look different from selling robots. For a wider look at this problem, see product-market fit for hardware startups.

Key lessons from Lior's playbook

1. Some markets require scale on day one. Fortune 100 manufacturers will not let a two-person startup touch mass production. Susan started with 170 people, a nine-figure round and a signed customer because a small start would not have been taken seriously. 2. Turn your first customer into your funding. The Flex deal guaranteed low tens of millions a year in revenue. That deal is what he took to investors. 3. Benchmark against what the customer already uses. Bright Machines' competitor was not another startup. It was a human worker. The team first matched human speed and quality on one task, then beat it, then added tasks. 4. Know when to walk away from money. He said no to a SPAC and a very large financing because the company was not ready to be public, then cut from 700 people to about 200. 5. Customer obsession means you never dismiss feedback. When his engineers say a customer does not understand, he shuts it down.

"These people are fortune 10. They will understand their business. We are nobody." — Lior Susan, Bright Machines

"You need to constantly iterate on the product and we are still constantly iterating on the product" — Lior Susan, Bright Machines

For another deep tech company built with strategic customers, see WEKA's path to $100M ARR.

Listen to the full interview: His robotics startup raised $400M, his VC fund over $4B, and he ran both at the same time.

FAQ: Bright Machines

Q: What is Bright Machines? A: Bright Machines is a San Francisco company that automates electronics assembly with flexible robotic cells and manufacturing software. It began as a project inside Flex and launched as an independent company in October 2018 with a $179M Series A led by Eclipse Ventures.

Q: Who is the CEO of Bright Machines? A: As of October 2026, the company's leadership page lists Sviat Dulianinov as CEO and co-founder Lior Susan as chairman. Earlier CEOs were Amar Hanspal (from launch until December 2021), Lior Susan (interim, December 2021 to September 2024) and Chris Stori (named in September 2024).

Q: How much funding has Bright Machines raised? A: More than $400M as of June 2024, after a $126M Series C ($106M equity led by BlackRock-managed funds plus $20M of venture debt from J.P. Morgan). As of October 2026, no later round could be confirmed.

Q: Who are Bright Machines' investors? A: Named investors include Eclipse Ventures, funds and accounts managed by BlackRock, Nvidia, Microsoft, Jabil and Shinhan Securities. J.P. Morgan provided venture debt. Flex received equity in the carve-out, as Susan shared on the show.

Q: Did Bright Machines go public? A: No. It agreed to go public through a merger with the SPAC SCVX in May 2021, but both sides ended the deal in December 2021. Bright Machines remains private as of October 2026.

Sources: Listen to the Full Founder Story

• Lior Susan, Bright Machines — co-founder of Bright Machines and founder of Eclipse Ventures, who carved a 170-person robotics team out of Flex, nearly took it public through a SPAC, and rebuilt it around AI server assembly.

Listen to the full episode at pmf.show for the complete story.

Last updated: October 2026