Autumn Labs

What do they actually do

Autumn Labs provides a cloud + local software platform that connects to robotic assembly cells, automated test stations, industrial arms, and manual stations to collect real-time production data. It shows live throughput, yield and SPC metrics, equipment state and downtime, unit/serial-number lineage, and sends alerts when thresholds are breached (homepage; docs overview).

Engineers can also push small control inputs and test specifications back to stations, and use a time-travel history view to inspect past runs and trace failures. The product integrates via SDKs/APIs (Python, C#, CLI) so teams wire it into existing PLCs, station controllers, test software or MES rather than replacing hardware (docs – basics; SDK). The company reports active deployments monitoring 50+ automated factory stations across 4 consumer‑electronics lines at multiple companies and contract manufacturers (YC profile).

Who are their target customer(s)

• Factory production/automation engineers at consumer‑electronics OEMs and CMs: They need faster root-cause isolation when a robot or test station stops and to know which units were affected; tracing across machines and serial numbers is slow and manual (docs – units/history).
• Test and quality engineers running automated test stations: Iterating test specifications and rolling out small changes across stations is tedious; validating fixes for flaky tests or inconsistent pass/fail takes too long (docs – data types & test spec controls).
• Plant or operations managers responsible for throughput and yield: They lack a single live view of yield/SPC and downtime to spot trends and act quickly when throughput drops (homepage – SPC/throughput/alerts).
• Integration/IT engineers connecting PLCs, robot controllers and MES: Each station integration is bespoke and lengthy; they want developer-friendly SDKs/APIs that fit existing station software and controls (SDK/API).
• Contract‑manufacturer line owners and account managers: They need auditable, safe ways to push small control or test changes across multiple customer lines and prove what changed during defect investigations (homepage – control inputs & lineage).

How would they acquire their first 10, 50, and 100 customers

• First 10: Run paid pilots with known CMs/OEM lines, integrating one station via the SDK/agent and delivering a specific troubleshooting win (e.g., reduced time to root cause or a stabilized test) to create a repeatable runbook and case study (SDK; YC profile).
• First 50: Expand within those CMs via line‑wide rollouts and templated integrations; embed a field engineer to shorten onsite time and partner with systems integrators and robot/test vendors to bundle Autumn as the monitoring/triage layer (architecture/integrations).
• First 100: Scale through channels and productized connectors for common PLCs/robot brands, improve self‑onboarding, and publish reference case studies; add tighter access controls/audit trails and standardized test‑spec push/rollback to win larger, safety‑sensitive accounts (docs – concepts; homepage).

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

There are ~4.28M industrial robots operating in factories worldwide, with electronics accounting for ~23–24% of installations (IFR; IFR executive summary). The MES software market is ~USD 16B in 2024, providing a comparable spend bucket for Autumn’s monitoring/analytics slice (Grand View Research). The broader IoT-in-manufacturing market is much larger (~USD 116B in 2024) but includes hardware/services beyond Autumn’s scope (Fortune Business Insights).

Bottom-up calculation:

Electronics factories likely have ≥1M addressable automated endpoints (robots plus test cells and instrumented stations). At an assumed USD 1k–5k ARR per station for software/monitoring, that implies USD 1–5B of endpoint-driven software TAM; alternatively, competing for roughly the electronics share (~24%) of MES spend suggests ~USD 3.8–4.0B in reachable software dollars (IFR; Grand View Research).

Assumptions:

• Automated endpoints include robots plus comparable test/assembly stations not counted in IFR robot stock.
• Annual per‑station pricing in the USD 1k–5k range for software/monitoring; services/hardware excluded.
• Autumn competes for a slice of MES/analytics budgets rather than replacing full MES across all sites.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• Instrumental: Targets electronics lines with data tied to serial numbers, images, and failure analysis to speed root cause during NPI and production; overlaps on traceability and investigations but not general robot control.
• Oden Technologies: Factory analytics for OEE/SPC and root‑cause tools across process and discrete manufacturing; overlaps on monitoring/dashboards and line‑level insights.
• Tulip: Frontline operations apps capturing events, genealogy and OEE with no‑code workflows; can substitute for visibility/traceability where operator tooling and digital work instructions are the priority.
• Seebo: Predictive quality and digital‑twin analytics focused on process manufacturing; stronger for continuous processes than discrete robotic test‑station control and per‑unit histories.
• Augury: Machine and production health using sensors and diagnostics to predict failures; overlaps on reducing downtime but oriented to asset condition monitoring rather than unit‑level lineage or pushing test specs.