Investing in Westmag

One of the underrated advantages of investing across the entire hardware stack is firsthand exposure to the supply chain challenges that plague our industrial base. Across our defense, drone, and robotics portfolio companies, we hit the same wall again and again. Sourcing US-manufactured and ITAR-compliant components in the necessary volumes and at the necessary speeds was difficult and becoming increasingly so. At the same time, the United States tightened regulation around domestic parts for drones, and real concerns came up that China would clamp down on exports of robotics components, given what we’d already seen them do with rare earths and semiconductors. When one starts mapping which single points of failure could take down entire product lines, motors and actuators rise to the top of the priority list.

And for good reason. The scope of what we mean when we talk about robotics is really any physically actuated device. Motors and actuators are the muscle of physical AI, the atomic unit that makes these machines actually move. Though motors and actuators vary across multiple dimensions (power source, precision, gear ratios, and many other design choices), they are united by their ubiquity — they animate every drone, every humanoid, and every industrial robot, sitting at the intersection of two of the most consequential buildouts of our generation: the drone revolution reshaping modern defense, and the robotics revolution about to reshape everything else. China currently dominates this landscape, producing over 30 million more drone motors and robot actuators per year than the U.S., a gap that is the result of decades of deliberate investment in the manufacturing across the electro-industrial stack. The result is that many American drone, robotics, and defense companies are building on a foundation they don’t control.

We spent over a year looking for the company that could fill this gap and build an American manufacturer of motors and actuators. At one point, we even considered incubating a company ourselves. As we spoke with founders and technologists building across the robotics and hardware ecosystem, we kept hearing whispers of “the motor guy.” All roads seemed to lead to this mythical figure who apparently knows everything about motors, everyone working on motors, and everything about every step of making motors, from raw materials to winding machines. We finally met David Hansen almost exactly a year ago and, over tacos, heard his master plan to bring motor manufacturing to America.

From the first meeting, it was clear that David is an “n-of-1” founder. A truly independent thinker and rule-breaker unencumbered by how things always have been done, in favor of how they ought to be done. A gravitational center that can pull together whatever is necessary to realize an ambitious mission. We talk sometimes about founders who seem to have been born to build their companies. David was put on this earth to build Westmag.

It was another few weeks before we met David’s other half, Jordan Sanders. For every out-of-the-box idea David brings to the table, Jordan brings the execution muscle. Jordan makes the decisions that make things happen, and the operational excellence that is core to companies where the factory is the product. The combination of first-principles thinking with execution rigor is genuinely rare, and when you find it in a founding pair, you need to back it.

Since our first meeting over tacos and beers last summer, Westmag has moved at a blistering speed from inception to shipping motors from their first factory. They deeply studied what works for manufacturers in Asia, and mapped supply chains, component manufacturers, potential partners, and competitive dynamics, such that they imbued in the company the tacit process knowledge that so often is overlooked when discussing building manufacturing capabilities. They set up a semi-automated production line in South San Francisco as the first of its kind in the US, hired a killer team of motor experts, engineers, and supply chain operators, and are rapidly scaling production of qualified motors for defense customers while serving the growing robotics ecosystem with actuators.

There’s the concept of an idea whose time has come, if the right team can catalyze it. That time is now, and that team is Westmag. In December 2025, the FCC effectively banned foreign-made drones and critical components including motors. Every American drone and robotics OEM that had been hoping this problem would resolve itself is now facing the same reckoning at once. The regulatory tailwind, combined with exploding demand from defense and humanoid robotics means the timing for what Westmag is building has never been better, and the cost of not having it has never been more obvious.

Westmag answered the call. We’re proud to lead their seed round, and proud to be in their corner.