Zack Eakin, a former engineer at defense startup Anduril, has raised $42 million in Series A funding for his startup Layup Parts, which aims to become the Amazon of composite parts for the B2B manufacturing sector. The company, based in Huntington Beach, California, currently employs about 60 people and plans to use the new capital to grow its workforce and move into a larger facility this year, according to TechCrunch.
Company Founding and Funding
Eakin left Anduril in 2024 to start Layup Parts, after practicing his pitch on Anduril co-founders Palmer Luckey, Brian Schimpf, and Matt Grimm. He received feedback from each: Grimm helped with VC pitching, Schimpf pushed on strategy, and Luckey guided storytelling. This preparation paid off. Two years ago, Eakin raised a $9 million seed round. The startup announced on Tuesday that it has closed a $42 million Series A led by dual-use venture fund Marlinspike, with participation from new investors Cerberus Ventures and Pinegrove Venture Partners, and existing backers Founders Fund and Lux Capital.
| Funding Round | Amount | Key Investors |
|---|---|---|
| Seed | $9M | Founders Fund, Lux Capital |
| Series A | $42M | Marlinspike (lead), Cerberus Ventures, Pinegrove Venture Partners, Founders Fund, Lux Capital |
The Problem with Composites
Eakin has worked with composite materials for around two decades, starting at Chip Ganassi Racing in motorsports, then at Elon Musk's Boring Company in 2017, and later at Anduril in 2021. During his time at Anduril, he noticed that startups like SendCutSend and Protolabs had revolutionized rapid prototyping and part shipping for other manufacturing verticals, but nothing similar existed for composites. "It just kind of dawned on me that, like, all these other manufacturing verticals are getting better, [and] we are struggling to find people to make our composite parts for us," Eakin told TechCrunch. "Why is there nobody trying to make this better?"
Composites are inherently harder to deal with, requiring "a lot more fingers and eyeballs involved," according to Eakin. Consolidation among composite companies meant larger firms were reluctant to innovate, and they lacked the software talent to build user-friendly ordering tools.
How Layup Parts Works
The company's goal is to make ordering custom carbon fiber or fiberglass parts as easy as buying on Amazon. Eakin explained that with stock materials and a deep understanding of them, the company can build software that reduces the number of clicks engineers need to produce parts by an order of magnitude, eventually reaching "zero clicks" where the system automatically generates shapes from customer data. "If we have stock materials, and you have a good understanding of those materials, we can build software that has an order of magnitude reduction in the amount of clicking it takes for an engineer to produce those — and ultimately gets to zero clicks, where it just takes customer data and poops out shapes," Eakin said.
Customer Base and Growth
In the two years since founding, Layup Parts has been rapidly prototyping and producing parts for a variety of customers, including motorsports teams, design studios making show cars, and even pickleball paddle companies. The company has already cut the time between receiving orders and production, though specific metrics were not detailed in the source.
Implications for B2B Marketplace Operators
For B2B marketplace operators, Layup Parts represents a new vertical in industrial digital commerce. The startup's approach mirrors platforms like SendCutSend and Protolabs but focuses on a material category that has been underserved due to its complexity. The $42 million investment signals venture capital confidence in digitizing custom manufacturing for high-performance materials, a trend that could influence cross-border sourcing strategies for composite parts.
Eakin decided to start a new company rather than fix the problem internally, saying: "I just decided this might be the best thing I can do for Anduril, is to go fix this part of the supply chain, because I don't think it's just an Anduril problem." This highlights how specialized B2B marketplaces can address industry-wide supply chain bottlenecks, a lesson for marketplace operators evaluating vertical opportunities.
What's Next for Layup Parts
The new funding will go primarily toward hiring and expanding facilities. The company used most of its seed money on capital expenditures and now intends to grow its ranks and move into a bigger facility this year, according to TechCrunch. With approximately 60 employees, Layup Parts aims to scale its operations to meet growing demand from its diverse customer base.
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