LineWise, a Thailand-based startup that builds an AI-powered virtual engineer for manufacturers, has raised $1.1 million in pre-seed funding. The round saw participation from A2D Ventures, Y Combinator, Exitfund, REMUS Capital, SBXi Fund and Team Ignite Ventures.
LineWise said in a statement that the funding will accelerate its aim to eliminate two of the most expensive problems in manufacturing: unplanned downtime and yield loss caused by defects.
With this funding, the company plans to expand into North America and Asia, grow its AI engineering team, and improve its tools for preventing defects and fixing problems — starting with can-making and packaging lines.
Its goal is to become the leading AI platform that helps manufacturers move into the Industry 4.0 era.
“Every minute of uptime and every defect-free unit matters,
“With this funding, we’re scaling our platform so every factory has a 24/7 AI engineer—cutting losses, protecting yields, and freeing teams to focus on innovation instead of firefighting,” said James Kujareevanich, Chief Executive Officer of LineWise.
Factory shutdowns can cost manufacturers more than $100,000 per hour and disrupt the entire supply chain. At the same time, defects on fast production lines, like those used in can-making and packaging, lead to considerable hidden costs. Issues such as wrinkles, leaks, false seams, and misfeeds not only waste materials but also cause problems in later processes and require expensive rework.
LineWise solves these problems by acting as a 24/7 AI engineer. Its multi-agent AI system is designed to think like experienced process and maintenance engineers. It analyzes sensor data, event logs, equipment manuals, and past fixes to identify root causes and give step-by-step troubleshooting guidance quickly.
This means fewer stoppages, faster recovery from problems like leaks or false seams, less rework, and better production output — without needing senior engineers to dig through records manually.
“LineWise is solving two of the biggest hidden costs in the global economy: downtime and yield loss,
“Their AI-powered virtual engineer delivers immediate return on investment (ROI) by helping factories troubleshoot defects faster, prevent rework, and keep production online,” said Ankit Upadhyay, Founder and General Partner at A2D Ventures.
LineWise was founded by a team with strong backgrounds in engineering, AI, and manufacturing systems.
Tanachart (James) Kujareevanich, CEO – Former McKinsey consultant with expertise in fragile production systems.
Zhichu Ren, CTO – Expert in autonomous robotics, previously worked on robotics for materials research.
Wenbo Zhang, CPO – Former founding engineer at Greyscale AI and Bestmow, and holder of a patent in industrial automation.
Together, the founding teams bring technical rigor, operational expertise, and robotics know-how–building the right mix to tackle downtime and defects with AI, said the statement.
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