Saphira AI

What do they actually do

Saphira AI is a cloud tool for hardware teams to collect, trace, and generate safety and compliance artifacts so products can be certified and shipped faster. It positions itself as a simpler alternative to heavyweight requirements/traceability tools like Jama or IBM DOORS and automates parts of certification with AI YC Launch Homepage.

Today, Saphira can extract requirements and failure modes from design artifacts (e.g., ECAD screenshots) and auto-generate FMEAs, provide a standards-search agent that cites relevant clauses, and centralize requirements, design decisions, and evidence for continuous audit readiness Demo video Standards blog YC Launch Homepage.

Who are their target customer(s)

• Hardware engineering lead at a robotics or industrial-automation startup: Spends significant time turning schematics and CAD into requirements, hazards, and FMEAs; current process is manual and slows certification. Saphira targets this by extracting from design artifacts and auto-generating FMEAs Demo Homepage.
• Safety or compliance manager at a mid-size hardware company (aerospace, industrial): Must produce defensible end-to-end traceability across standards, requirements, and test evidence, often using spreadsheets and heavy RM tools. Saphira offers continuous, audit-ready evidence and simpler standards mapping YC Launch Homepage.
• Systems or verification engineer working toward automotive or robotic standards (e.g., ISO 26262): Needs to map specific clauses to requirements and show coverage; manual search and citation is slow and error-prone. Saphira provides standards search with cited clauses and ISO 26262 guidance ISO 26262 guide Standards blog.
• Test or QA engineer responsible for traceable test evidence: Test logs and reports live in disparate tools and are tedious to link back to requirements for audits. Saphira links requirements, designs, and tests to create an audit trail and run continuous checks Homepage.
• Founding CEO or head of product at an early-stage hardware company: Wants to ship faster without long certification delays, but lacks scalable processes to produce the required paperwork and traceability. Saphira positions itself as “Vanta for hardware” and sells to startups and larger teams YC company page YC Launch.

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

• First 10: Convert demo viewers and YC/network intros into tightly scoped, one‑month paid pilots that deliver a concrete FMEA or standards-mapping artifact; provide hands‑on implementation and publish short case studies Demo YC Launch/Profile.
• First 50: Run targeted workshops/webinars for safety and systems engineers, and bundle pilots via referrals from certification consultancies and test labs. Productize a few vertical templates and use focused outbound to convert attendees and referrals into pilots ISO 26262 guide Standards blog.
• First 100: Add key integrations (ECAD/CAD ingestion, test-log connectors) and launch an “audit‑ready” tier for compliance teams while scaling a small enterprise sales motion; leverage case studies and consultant/test‑lab channels to land multi‑team accounts Homepage/Features INCOSE roadmap slides.

What is the rough total addressable market

Top-down context:

Saphira sits at the intersection of requirements/traceability (e.g., Jama, DOORS), functional-safety analysis (e.g., FMEA tooling), and compliance automation for regulated hardware across robotics, automotive, aerospace, and industrial automation. It aims to be the orchestration layer for standards mapping, artifact generation, and continuous audit evidence in these sectors.

Bottom-up calculation:

Estimate a beachhead of ~2,000 regulated hardware companies in NA/EU with active certification needs, each paying $30k–$75k ARR for a team license, implying a $60M–$150M initial TAM; expanding globally to ~8,000 similar companies yields ~$240M–$600M.

Assumptions:

• Focus on firms shipping regulated hardware in robotics, industrial automation, automotive suppliers, and aerospace over the next 3–5 years.
• Average deployment is a 8–15-seat team or per‑program license, translating to $30k–$75k ARR per account.
• Counts of target companies are estimates based on the number of mid‑to‑large hardware makers pursuing safety‑critical certifications; figures are directional.

Who are some of their notable competitors

• Jama Connect: Mainstream requirements and traceability platform used to manage specs and link requirements to tests; heavier to configure and relies on teams to author/maintain artifacts vs. Saphira’s AI‑assisted extraction Site.
• IBM DOORS / DOORS Next: Enterprise requirements management for large regulated programs emphasizing rigorous process and traceability; configuration‑heavy and less focused on AI‑driven extraction from drawings Docs.
• Siemens Polarion: Unified requirements and test management used to enforce traceability and pass audits (e.g., ISO 26262/IEC); closer to ALM than an AI‑first assistant for extracting hazards/FMEAs from design artifacts Site.
• Ansys medini analyze: Specialist safety‑analysis tool for FMEA/FM(E)DA/HARA and ISO 26262; strong for model‑based quantitative analysis but not positioned as a lightweight orchestration/traceability layer Site.
• Vanta: Compliance automation for software companies (SOC 2, ISO 27001) with continuous evidence collection; relevant as a go‑to‑market analog for “Vanta for hardware,” but it targets cloud/software controls, not hardware design artifacts Site.