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Annie and David Lu grew up in a multi-generational manufacturing family.
“My first job was a janitor in the quality lab,” said David. “I climbed distillation towers, swept the factory floors, and worked within the factory. I learned a lot about operations, and have a deep empathy for people within this industry.”
The Lus are siblings—David is the elder, and there are three years between them—and the cofounders of H2Ok Innovations, a startup providing precision automation solutions for manufacturers.
Founded in 2021 after Annie dropped out of Harvard, H2Ok recently reached a new milestone: The company raised a $12.42 million Series A, led by Greycroft, Fortune can exclusively report. 2048 Ventures and Construct Capital also participated in the round, while Greycroft’s Jim Moffat will join the board under the terms of the deal. Currently, H2Ok—named for the original idea for the company focusing on water in industrial settings—counts AB InBev, Coca-Cola, Danone, and Unilever among its customers. H20k works in precision automation, with the goal of automatically optimizing how equipment runs through data collection, sensors, and more.
“Imagine cleaning your dishes,” said Annie. “You have your pots, pans, plates, and they all have gunk on them. You put it into your dishwasher, which is pre-programmed for ‘normal wash’ or ‘quick wash.’ It’s programmed to clean for a certain amount of time. What your dishwasher doesn’t know is how dirty your plates are. If your dishwasher knew how dirty your plates still are, it could stop cleaning in 30 minutes, instead of going for the 45 the dishwasher was programmed for, for example.”
H2Ok is looking to provide tech that allows manufacturers to be more efficient, at a time when political and economic uncertainty has roiled supply chains and longstanding manufacturing norms.
“Customers are talking about inflation, rising prices, supply chain risk, and geopolitical conflict, but they’re also thinking about how we create manufacturing in every region around the world,” said David. “How do you strengthen our most foundational sectors to make sure they’re still able to run effectively and efficiently?”
The Lus are both in their 20s, and are looking to grow with their manufacturer customers—but then again, they’ve already spent their lives in proximity to the industry. Their grandfather started a chemical manufacturing factory, a business their father also worked in.)
“We grew up spending summers on the shop floor,” said Annie. “I remember David cleaning floors and washing glassware. I think those experiences really brought us this deep appreciation, passion, and obsession with manufacturing and industrials. It’s something that’s deep in our blood.”
ICYMI…Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Labs, after much horse race reporting, has officially announced its mega-seed round of $2 billion at a $12 billion valuation. Andreessen Horowitz led the round, while Nvidia, Accel, ServiceNow, Cisco, AMD, and Jane Street participated. Read Murati’s post on X here.
See you tomorrow,
Allie Garfinkle
X: @agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle@fortune.com
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This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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