PreScalar Raises $7M to Build the Software Layer for the Modern Factory

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 22, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- PreScalar, the test and data platform for advanced manufacturing, today announced $7 million in Seed funding co-led by Dynamo Ventures and BMW i Ventures, with participation from Blue Wire Capital, Uplift Ventures, and Antler. 

PreScalar was founded in 2025 by Skyler Salman, John Cathcart, and Ben Fredrickson, who spent their careers on the factory floor and inside engineering organizations responsible for bringing some of the world's most complex hardware products into production. Salman led testing at Cruise, Rivian, Waymo, and Google; Fredrickson shipped safety-critical software at Cruise, Auris, and Remedy Robotics; and Cathcart led product launches at Cruise, Lucid, SF Motors, and Chrysler. They built PreScalar to turn the manufacturing infrastructure they once had to build internally into a platform any advanced manufacturer can deploy.

That firsthand experience exposed the team to a problem becoming increasingly urgent across advanced manufacturing: when firmware changes after components have entered production or inventory, manufacturers may have few good options for updating it. Parts can require manual reprogramming or even shipment back to the manufacturer, creating delays, added costs, and limited traceability.

"Hardware has fundamentally changed, but the way we manufacture it hasn't kept up," said Skyler Salman, co-founder and CEO of PreScalar. "We built PreScalar because we lived this problem ourselves. This funding allows us to bring infrastructure once reserved for the most sophisticated engineering teams to manufacturers at scale, giving them a better way to test, deploy software, and understand every device moving through production."

PreScalar's modular hardware can be deployed as an individual test station and expanded across the manufacturing line, connecting test workflows, firmware management, and data capture into a unified dataset. As deployments grow across lines, products, and suppliers, that dataset can give manufacturers increasingly comprehensive visibility into individual devices throughout production.

"The most sophisticated hardware companies have spent years and enormous resources building this infrastructure themselves. Everyone else has been left stitching together legacy tools or building from scratch," said Santosh Sankar, Managing Partner at Dynamo Ventures. "PreScalar is building the system that closes that loop, allowing manufacturers to continuously learn from products in the field and improve how they're tested and built. Skyler, John, and Ben have actually built and scaled these systems inside some of the world's most demanding manufacturing environments, which gives them an unusually strong advantage in building the company that can define this category."

Modern factories increasingly manage software. The global automotive software and electronics market alone is projected to reach $519 billion by 2035, as vehicles become increasingly software-defined. Yet the manufacturing infrastructure underneath them was built for physical products, not the constant firmware updates, testing requirements, and software releases these products now require. Manufacturers are often left relying on legacy test equipment, fragmented engineering tools, or highly customized systems built internally. PreScalar is building the missing software deployment and testing layer for the modern factory.

"The best hardware companies in the world are defined by what comes off their production lines. As every product becomes software-defined, the infrastructure to deploy, test, and trace that software at manufacturing scale becomes as critical as the product itself," said Kasper Sage, Managing Partner at BMW i Ventures. "PreScalar is building that infrastructure, and the founding team is uniquely positioned to do it. They have lived this problem firsthand at some of the most demanding manufacturing environments ever built."

PreScalar's platform is designed for manufacturers of complex, software-defined hardware across autonomous vehicles, automotive, robotics, consumer electronics, and defense. The company is already working with manufacturers ranging from high-growth technology companies to large-scale global manufacturers, helping them automate production testing and reduce the time and complexity required to deploy software on the factory floor.

With the new funding, PreScalar will expand its R&D and hardware manufacturing capabilities, grow its team, and scale commercial deployments as manufacturers increasingly look for infrastructure capable of keeping pace with the software inside their products.

About PreScalar

PreScalar is the test and data platform for advanced manufacturing. The company deploys modular test equipment and software into factories to automate testing, manage firmware, and capture production data across the manufacturing process. Founded in 2025 by veterans of Cruise, Waymo, Rivian, Google, Lucid, and other advanced hardware companies, PreScalar is building the infrastructure manufacturers need as physical products become increasingly software-defined. Learn more at PreScalar.

SOURCE PreScalar, Inc.