Layup Parts Raises $42 Million to Bring Amazon-Style Speed to Composite Manufacturing

Updated on June 03, 2026 • 5 min read

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. — Composite manufacturing startup Layup Parts has secured $42 million in Series A funding as it seeks to modernize one of the most labor-intensive segments of advanced manufacturing: custom carbon fiber and fiberglass part production.

The funding round was led by Marlinspike, with participation from Cerberus Ventures, Pinegrove Venture Partners, Founders Fund, and Lux Capital. The investment follows a $9 million seed round raised approximately two years ago and brings total disclosed funding to more than $50 million.

Founded by former Anduril engineer Zack Eakin, Layup Parts aims to do for composite manufacturing what companies such as SendCutSend and Protolabs have done for metal fabrication and rapid prototyping—dramatically reducing the time, complexity, and cost involved in ordering custom parts.

Solving a Long-Standing Bottleneck in Composite Manufacturing

Composite materials such as carbon fiber and fiberglass have become increasingly important across aerospace, defense, motorsports, renewable energy, marine, and advanced mobility sectors. However, unlike metal machining or sheet metal fabrication, composite manufacturing remains highly dependent on manual labor, engineering expertise, and lengthy production cycles.

According to Eakin, that gap became increasingly obvious during his time at defense technology company Anduril.

While other manufacturing sectors were becoming more automated and digitally accessible, sourcing composite parts often remained slow, fragmented, and difficult to scale.

“The rest of manufacturing was getting dramatically easier, but composite parts were still taking weeks or months to source,” Eakin observed.

The result is a supply-chain challenge that affects industries ranging from aerospace startups to established defense contractors.

From Motorsports to Defense Manufacturing

Eakin brings nearly two decades of composite experience to the company.

His career began at Chip Ganassi Racing, where he worked on advanced carbon fiber structures for IndyCar programs and the highly unconventional DeltaWing race car project.

In 2017, he joined Elon Musk’s The Boring Company as its first engineer before returning to composite-intensive engineering through Anduril in 2021.

Those experiences exposed him to two important trends:

• The increasing strategic importance of advanced composites
• The growing role of software-driven manufacturing platforms

Rather than viewing composite production purely as a materials challenge, Eakin saw an opportunity to digitize and automate the ordering and production workflow itself.

Building a Software-Driven Composite Factory

Layup Parts is developing software that simplifies the entire process of turning customer designs into finished composite components.

The long-term vision is ambitious.

Instead of engineers exchanging multiple emails, spreadsheets, manufacturing drawings, and production revisions, customers would simply upload design files and receive finished parts with minimal human intervention.

The company describes this goal as moving toward a “one-click” or even “zero-click” manufacturing workflow.

In practical terms, this means:

• Automated design analysis
• Material selection optimization
• Manufacturing planning
• Digital quoting
• Rapid production scheduling

The objective is to compress timelines that traditionally require weeks into hours.

According to the company, certain production cycles have already been reduced from weeks to same-day turnaround.

Aerospace and Defense Drive Demand

Although Layup Parts serves multiple industries, aerospace and defense have emerged as the company’s largest markets.

This reflects broader trends occurring throughout advanced manufacturing.

Defense contractors increasingly rely on:

• Lightweight composite structures
• Unmanned systems
• Rapid prototyping
• Shorter development cycles

Traditional composite supply chains often struggle to support these requirements due to their reliance on manual processes and specialized labor.

As governments accelerate defense spending and aerospace programs demand faster development schedules, digital manufacturing platforms capable of delivering composite parts quickly are attracting growing interest.

The investor list reflects this reality.

Marlinspike has invested heavily in defense technology companies, including Anduril and advanced manufacturing ventures.

Cerberus Ventures was founded by Chris Darby, the former chief executive of CIA-backed venture firm In-Q-Tel, highlighting the increasing overlap between defense technology investment and manufacturing innovation.

Growth Plans Following the Series A Round

Layup Parts currently employs roughly 60 people and plans significant expansion following the funding round.

Unlike the seed financing, which was largely directed toward equipment and manufacturing infrastructure, the new capital will focus on:

• Workforce expansion
• Software development
• Manufacturing automation
• Facility growth

The company also plans to move into a larger production facility later this year.

Management believes the combination of advanced manufacturing equipment and proprietary software can create a scalable platform capable of serving both commercial and government customers.

Why Investors Are Paying Attention

The investment arrives amid increasing interest in reshoring manufacturing capacity and strengthening industrial supply chains.

Composite materials are becoming critical across multiple strategic industries, including:

• Aerospace
• Defense
• Space systems
• Advanced mobility
• Energy infrastructure

Yet the manufacturing ecosystem supporting these materials remains significantly less digitized than metalworking, machining, or additive manufacturing.

For investors, this creates an opportunity to modernize a large but relatively underserved market.

Rather than competing directly with material suppliers, Layup Parts is positioning itself as a technology layer that sits between engineers and production.

If successful, the company could become a digital infrastructure provider for composite manufacturing in the same way that cloud-based software transformed traditional manufacturing workflows.

🔒 Content Transparency & Editorial Integrity

This article is developed based on real engineering experience, machine testing data, and practical production knowledge from Jota Machinery’s work in advanced composite manufacturing.

All technical explanations—including material structure, processing methods, and performance characteristics—are reviewed and verified by our engineering team to ensure accuracy and real-world relevance.

To improve clarity and structure, AI-assisted tools may have been used during content organization and language refinement. However:

• All key technical insights originate from first-hand industrial experience
• All data and claims are manually reviewed and validated
• The content is created with the primary goal of educating engineers, manufacturers, and buyers

We do not publish content solely for search ranking purposes. Every article is designed to provide practical, experience-based value to professionals in the composite materials industry.

Industry Perspective

The emergence of Layup Parts highlights a broader shift occurring throughout the composites sector.

For years, innovation focused primarily on materials—stronger fibers, improved resins, and advanced manufacturing techniques.

Today, attention is increasingly turning toward workflow automation, software integration, and supply-chain efficiency.

The question is no longer whether composite materials will continue growing in aerospace and defense applications.

The challenge is whether the industry can manufacture those parts quickly enough, cheaply enough, and at sufficient scale to meet future demand.

Layup Parts is betting that software, automation, and digital manufacturing can solve that problem—and investors have now committed $42 million to see if that bet pays off.