# Jonas Schneider

> Jonas Schneider is the Founder and CEO of Daedalus, an AI-powered precision manufacturing company headquartered in Karlsruhe, Germany, building the factory of the future. A former OpenAI technical lead and co-founder of its robotics team, Schneider left Silicon Valley in 2019 to solve a problem he lived firsthand: getting precision-manufactured parts takes months, and the world's most advanced machines sit idle 80% of the time. Daedalus deploys proprietary AI software across CNC shop floors to double machine utilization, catch defects in real time, and preserve tacit manufacturing knowledge before it disappears with retiring machinists. The company has raised $41.1M in total funding, including a $21M Series A led by NGP Capital in February 2024, and operates a 50,000-square-foot factory serving defense, medical devices, aerospace, and semiconductor clients.

- **Role:** Founder & CEO at Daedalus
- **Organizations:** Daedalus, OpenAI, Stripe, Y Combinator
- **From:** Germany
- **Nationality:** German
- **Education:** Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
- **Known for:** Co-founded and led the Robotics team at OpenAI as one of its first engineers, Co-led the Rubik's Cube robot hand project at OpenAI, featured in The New York Times and IEEE Spectrum, Published research on reinforcement learning, hindsight experience replay, domain randomization, and simulation-to-reality transfer

## Career timeline

- **2012** — Enrolled at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology to study Computer Science
- **2013** — Software Engineering Intern at Stripe
- **2016** — Joined OpenAI as one of its first engineers; co-founded and led the Robotics team
- **2017** — Made angel investment in Weights & Biases
- **2019** — Co-led OpenAI's landmark Rubik's Cube robot hand project, featured in NYT and IEEE Spectrum
- **2019** — Left OpenAI to found Daedalus in November 2019, returning to Germany
- **2020** — Daedalus participated in Y Combinator Winter 2020 batch; raised $2.6M pre-seed from Khosla Ventures
- **2021** — Raised $11.5M seed round led by Addition (Lee Fixel), with Khosla Ventures
- **2024** — Raised $21M Series A led by NGP Capital in February 2024, bringing total funding to $41.1M
- **2024** — Daedalus operates a 50,000 sq ft AI-powered factory in Karlsruhe, Germany with ~150 employees

## Achievements

- Co-founded and led the Robotics team at OpenAI as one of its first engineers
- Co-led the Rubik's Cube robot hand project at OpenAI, featured in The New York Times and IEEE Spectrum
- Published research on reinforcement learning, hindsight experience replay, domain randomization, and simulation-to-reality transfer
- Founded Daedalus in 2019, raising $41.1M in total funding from top-tier VCs
- Selected for Y Combinator Winter 2020 batch
- Built a 50,000 sq ft AI-powered precision manufacturing factory in Karlsruhe, Germany
- Achieved doubling of CNC machine utilization (from ~15-20% industry average) using AI
- Angel investor in Weights & Biases (W&B), a leading ML experiment tracking platform

## Latest updates

- **2024-02** — Daedalus closes $21M Series A led by NGP Capital, with Addition and Khosla Ventures participating.
- **2024-02** — Jonas Schneider featured in TechCrunch, Sifted, Tech.eu, and NGP Capital coverage of Daedalus Series A.
- **2024-01** — NGP Capital publishes DeepTech Unleashed EP 9 podcast interview with Jonas Schneider on AI-driven re-industrialisation in Europe.

## Links

- Website: https://daedalus.de
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonas-schneider/
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/jonasschneider
- GitHub: https://github.com/jonasschneider

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/jonas-schneider
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-26