Precision manufacturing is hitting an intractable ceiling: machine shops are attempting to reshore production amid a chronic shortage of veteran machinists. In precision machining, CAM programming consumes up to 80% of pre-production time, leaving high-ticket CNC machinery idling while engineers manually map toolpaths. UK-based software startup CloudNC has secured a $20 million Series B extension to solve this throughput bottleneck, bringing its cumulative funding to $128 million.
Automating the CAM Bottleneck
Co-founded in 2015 by CEO Theo Saville and Chief Science Officer Chris Emery, CloudNC targets the core friction in precision engineering with its physics-driven CAM Assist software. Traditional workflows force programmers to manually select tooling, define fixtures, and map cutting paths—turning high-mix, low-volume production into an operational headache.
CAM Assist integrates natively into standard environments like Autodesk Fusion and Mastercam. Instead of spending days writing G-code, the system uses physics-informed models to determine cutting tools, approach angles, feeds, and speeds, outputting machine-ready code in minutes. This cuts machine downtime, minimizes scrap rates, and makes single-part runs economically viable.
"Traditional CAM systems are powerful, but in most workflows, they are still tools that allow programmers to manually specify how a part should be machined," Saville said.
Automating first-pass programming shifts experienced machinists from drafting code line-by-line to auditing, refining, and approving machining strategies.
Expansion and Quoting Tools
The extension round, led by Nimble Ventures alongside Calculus Venture Capital and Entrepreneur First, highlights an unmistakable shift in industrial venture capital. Investors are moving away from purely digital SaaS tools toward physical-world industrial AI that delivers measurable ROI on the shop floor.
CloudNC operates with an 80-person team and has already deployed CAM Assist across more than 1,000 machine shops globally, with 80% of its footprint concentrated in the United States. For industrial executives balancing reshoring mandates against an aging labor pool, autonomous CAM generation is no longer an experimental luxury—it is the only way to scale shop-floor capacity without waiting years to train a new generation of machinists.