Deep Tech Dominates Y Combinator's Latest Demo Day

Y Combinator's latest Demo Day featured a cohort shifting heavily toward deep tech, as TechCrunch first reported. Investors described the technology as resembling "science fiction," and despite the ambitious nature of the startups, investors told TechCrunch that valuations remained more grounded than in previous cohorts.

Among the most discussed companies are those targeting the energy and compute demands of AI. Automarine, co-founded by an MIT PhD in nuclear engineering and an MIT computer science and naval engineer, proposes floating nuclear-powered data centers to bypass land-based opposition and utilize seawater for cooling. The company aims for a gas-powered pilot by 2028 and nuclear ships by 2032, claiming over $4 billion in customer letters of intent. Similarly, Dipole Labs is developing optical networking hardware to reduce power consumption in AI data centers, while Lamb Labs, co-founded by an Oxford theoretical physicist and an Imperial College London AI PhD, is building "Model Processing Units" (MPUs) that hardcode AI weights into silicon to eliminate memory bottlenecks.

Robotics and defense also drew significant attention. Isengard Industries, co-founded by a defense entrepreneur and a former Australian Army officer, is producing jet-powered strike and counter-drones and reports $10 million in revenue. Nori is offering a $1,600 humanoid robot for household tasks, reporting nearly $500,000 in sales within six weeks. Cosmic Robotics, which reports $25 million in contracts through 2027 for solar panel installation, aims to eventually automate construction for Mars colonization. Other buzzy firms include Praxis AI, which collects real-world training data for robots; Waddle Labs, founded by Harvard graduates to create an API for robot control code; and Parasma, which is researching the use of human brain cells as an energy-efficient alternative to AI computing hardware.