Rollup Raises $5.6MM Seed Round Led by A16z and Thiel Capital
I am thrilled to announce that Rollup has raised $5.6 million in a Seed round led by Andreessen Horowitz (A16z) and Thiel Capital. This funding will accelerate our mission to help ambitious teams develop the hardware necessary for a thriving future.
I founded Rollup in January 2021, inspired by my firsthand experiences working in Systems Engineering and flight software at NASA's JPL, Blue Origin, and Varda.
Frustrated by the inefficiencies and communication barriers in hardware development, I set out to create a comprehensive platform to streamline these processes. Shortly after, Trevor Soule and Gabriel Louis-Kayen joined as the first team members, leading operations, logistics, sales, and recruiting.
Our platform is designed to facilitate the development of complex hardware, focusing initially on aerospace and defense but adaptable to various industries. Rollup evolved through rigorous customer discovery, demos, and design partnerships, leading to a mature product ready to revolutionize hardware collaboration.
Our $5.6MM Seed round is supported by A16z’s American Dynamism Fund, Peter Thiel’s family office, Space VC, and JAM Fund. This investment validates our vision and provides the resources needed to expand our product and market reach.
The Problem We Solve
Building complex hardware involves multiple engineering disciplines, each with its own tools and processes. This often leads to significant communication and integration challenges across an engineering team. Engineers can spend a large fraction of their time on non-engineering tasks due to inefficient tools and workflows. Rollup addresses these pain points by providing a unified, real-time platform that integrates all necessary engineering activities. This reduces the need for fragmented solutions and minimizes costly configuration changes.
Our Product
Rollup is a browser-based, real-time collaboration platform that supports the entire hardware development lifecycle. Key features include:
- System Modeling: From initial ideation to full-scale production, our platform facilitates comprehensive system modeling
- Real-Time Communication: Engineers receive real-time updates on every change, reducing the need for meetings and emails
- Requirements Management: Write, manage, and trace requirements that are connected to your system models
- Analysis: Write analytical code to crunch numbess, process test data, or run simulations in Python, MATLAB, Julia, and Octave directly in the Rollup environment
- CAD Design Reviews: Review CAD files with powerful CAD viewing and annotation workflows that support all major CAD formats
- Technical Report Writing: Write technical documentation once that is always-up-to-date
- Ease of Use: Self-serve signup flow allows engineers to evaluate and quickly start using Rollup without lengthy procurement processes
- Tool Integration: Integrates with popular tools like Google Sheets, MATLAB, SolidWorks, and ANSYS
- Intuitive Inbox: Engineers can stay updated with the latest changes and tasks through a real-time inbox
What’s Next
Over the next year, we will be expanding our customer base beyond early-stage startups to include the largest aerospace and defense companies. We will enhance our product capabilities with more domain-specific functionality and better integrations, maintaining an open platform philosophy for seamless interoperability with other tools and systems.
Rollup is not just for aerospace and defense; it’s designed for any team building complex hardware. Our vision is to be the ubiquitous platform for hardware engineering, helping teams bring their most ambitious projects to life quicker and with less risk.
Thank you to all of those who have and are joining us on this journey.
We are excited about the future and look forward to helping ambitious engineering teams get to market faster, with better hardware.