CloudNC raises $20M to automate manufacturing’s most pressing bottlenecks; plus, Sequoia doubles down on Cymphony

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1:00Its co-founder and CEO Theo Saville told TechCrunch. Saville launched Cloud NC in 2015 with Chris Emery. Now the company's chief science officer and offers AI-powered CAM assist software that automates parts of computer numerical control machining. Now, CNC is the process of using computer-controlled machines to cut or shape materials precisely into the parts that are then used in automotive, defense or consumer hardware industries. Before a part can be cut, Saville said a machinist or a computer-aided manufacturing programmer has to decide issues like how a part should be held or what tools should be used. They typically use powerful CAM software to help with this ideation phase and although some of these tools can help users create part features or known part patterns, that's different from looking at the part and generating an execution strategy, an expert would actually

2:02want to use. Saville said, traditional CAM systems are powerful, but in most workflows they are still tools that allow programmers to manually specify how a part should be machined. This is where his CAM assist comes in, a software that plugs into traditional CAM systems like Autodesk Fusion or Mastercam to help machinists and programmers make more efficient strategic manufacturing decisions. Saville said it selects suitable tools, approach directions and cutting feeds and speeds and then drafts the code required to tell the CNC machine what to do. From there the user reviews edits and approves the results. Saville said the goal was to help skilled workers be more efficient and productive rather than removing expert judgment from the process. If traditional CAM is a powerful toolkit, then CAM assist is more like an expert assisted sitting alongside the programmer, automating much of the first pass thinking and repetitive

3:02setup so the human can review, improve and approve the approach. Saville said more than 1000 machine shops worldwide use CAM assist and 80% of the company's customer base, which includes both manufacturers and companies is in the US. With a team of 80 employees, the company's biggest goal is scaling adoption. Well, as AI agents gain access to the same sensitive corporate data and systems as human workers while operating at machine speed, enterprises are prone to new security risks. Story adventure firm Sequoia Capital is betting big on that shift. Backing startup Symphony as it emerges with $30 million in funding to help companies keep their growing AI workforce in check. The funding includes a $25 million series A co-led by Sequoia and SMBC Fen Atlas Beyond Fund, valuing the New York and Tel Aviv based startup at more than $100 million after

4:07investment. Around follows a previously undisclosed seed investment from Sequoia. Now, AI agents do not necessarily go through the same access and identity controls as employees, but they have access to multiple systems and handle large amounts of corporate data. This makes it hard for enterprises to track who has access to what. Symphony is trying to address that gap by giving security teams a single view of employees, AI agents and other non-human identities, including the systems and sensitive data they can access at the core of its platform. The two-year-old startup has built what it calls a workforce graph. This brings together identity, data and activity signals. Symphony co-founder and CEO Shai Dekel says enterprise security was designed for human employees. Symphony says it is already finding risks inside large companies. At one US public company, the startup said it found about 85,000 files that have become

5:11accessible to AI tools and agents. Symphony stated it helped close the exposure and verify that none of the files had been accessed through those AI systems. In another case, Dekel told TechCrunch that an external collaborator had installed an unsanctioned instance of anthropics cloth that used the collaborator's existing access to scan thousands of sensitive files beyond identifying risks. Symphony uses AI agents to investigate incidents, prioritize what security teams should address, and automate some remediation, including correcting access permissions. Dekel said the platform can operate largely automatically, and that customers can also opt for a managed service that brings Symphony's security experts into the loop for more complex cases. That's all for now for the latest in-startup tech news. Go to TechCrunch.com.