(SeaPRwire) –

By: Oliver Hawthorne

The manufacturing industry’s biggest crisis isn’t a lack of factory floor space or raw materials. It’s the slow, steady erosion of hard-won tribal knowledge. Nearly a quarter of the U.S. manufacturing workforce is 55 or older. 97% of operators cite knowledge retention as their top concern. The talent gap already sits at 409,000 unfilled roles. Projections show that number will hit 1.9 million by 2033. For critical aerospace, defense, and medical parts, programming CNC machines still relies on decades of on-the-job experience that can’t be easily taught or scaled.

Limitless Labs announced a $20 million Series A round this week. The round is co-led by Dell Technologies Capital and Square Peg. Existing backers Grove Ventures, Meron Capital, and Kinetica joined the funding. The Tel Aviv-based startup, formerly known as LimitlessCNC, has built an agentic physical AI platform. It plugs directly into the CAD/CAM tools engineers already use, including Mastercam, NX, and Creo. Since stepping out of stealth, the company has scaled to full production deployments with Sandvik, Iscar, and clients across aerospace, defense, motorsports, and industrial machinery. It cuts CNC programming time by up to 50%. The platform is ITAR-compliant and deployable on AWS GovCloud, meeting the strict security rules of regulated industries.

The company’s core physical AI foundation model is trained not on generic text or code. It’s trained on the physics of metal cutting, CAD geometry, and real machine operational constraints. This isn’t another generic AI tool that spits out unvetted code. It helps engineers identify part features, recommend tools, sequence operations, generate toolpaths, and produce shop-floor-ready programs. It keeps engineers in full control of the workflow the entire time. The new funding will go toward building a U.S. commercial organization. It will also advance toward closed-loop CNC automation, expand its Tel Aviv research lab, and double headcount over the next 12 months. The next era of precision manufacturing will be won by companies that don’t just automate machines, but capture the knowledge that runs them.

Author bio: Oliver Hawthorne, a Principal Correspondent for a leading international technology review focused on industrial and enterprise tech innovation.