---
title: A New Drone Motor Maker Wants to Design in Minutes and Manufacture Outside China
description: Atlas Motion says its Vector software designs drone and robot motors in minutes. It has raised $11.5 million led by Greycroft and produces 10,000 motors a month.
author: Darie Nani (Editor-in-Chief)
date: 2026-08-07T11:56:48.077Z
updated: 2026-08-07T11:56:48.088Z
canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/atlas-motion-ai-drone-motor-design-series-a
image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/atlas-motion-drone-motor-117713.webp
categories: Startups
content_type: News
region: United States
publication: Sovereign Magazine
schema_type: Article
---

Atlas Motion, which makes motors and actuators for drones and robots, has come out of stealth with $11.5 million in Series A funding and a claim about how fast it can design a new motor. Chief executive Christian Mochen told [Forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkoetsier/2026/08/06/defense-startup-ai-turns-2-months-of-engineering-into-20-minutes/) that its own software, Vector, takes a motor from a written specification to a finished design in five to 10 minutes. Ask engineers how long that normally takes from a blank sheet and the answer runs from weeks to months, with an electromagnetism specialist, a mechanical engineer and the supply chain and manufacturing teams all working on it.

The round was led by Greycroft, with Also Capital, Enea Capital, Mana Ventures and Sunflower Capital, plus two angels: Jai Malik, chief executive of AMCA, and Scott Sanders, chief growth officer of Forterra. The founding team includes people who worked at Tesla, Mitre, Shield AI and Mach Industries.

## Vector Runs the Simulations Engineers Would Otherwise Do by Hand

Mochen says Vector takes in the context and requirements of a design, spins up a simulation environment to test it against the checks engineers would run by hand, then generates the manufacturing packages needed to produce it. He puts its accuracy at “99 percent confidence of what we're actually seeing when we output hardware on the floor”. He worked with Odin, Tesla's software for managing self-testing along a production line, and says Atlas took the same idea further by putting compute into the tooling across its own manufacturing chain, so the software follows each design through production and feeds real measurements back in.

He is careful about what the software replaces. “AI isn't replacing engineering,” he said. “It's simply orchestrating a lot of critical decisions across the engineering toolpath very, very fast.” Atlas does not call its engineers engineers. “We call ourselves architects,” Mochen said. “Our engineers are very systems-level thinkers. They design from first principles, but the hard part of the design is covered by our software.”

> "Building a motor is like making sushi. Making sushi is not the most complex thing in the world, and it doesn't have that many ingredients. But when you have a bad piece of sushi, it's very, very obvious. What our software does is allow us to make really good sushi really fast."
> — Christian Mochen, co-founder and chief executive, Atlas Motion

## Atlas Says It Is Producing 10,000 Motors a Month

The company says it incorporated in February, shipped its first motor within 60 days, is producing 10,000 motors a month and expects to pass 40,000 by December, with current capacity already committed. It also says it can take a new design into scaled production in six weeks against an industry norm of up to six months. Those figures, the design speed and the accuracy claim all come from the company, which has not named a customer; Forbes reported that its buyers are in defense.

## Engineering Sits in Long Beach and Production in the Philippines

Prototyping and engineering happen in Long Beach, California, while mass production is in the Philippines. Mochen points to the country's long standing as a US treaty ally and to the company's trade accreditations, though importing finished goods still leaves Atlas exposed to tariffs. The company is also opening an online storefront so independent builders can buy production-grade motors without going through enterprise procurement.

## Most Drone Motors Come From China, and Atlas Wants That Work in the US

Most of the world's drones and robots run on Chinese-made motors and actuators, and Mochen argues that single source is a serious vulnerability for the United States. “In the age of physical AI, we believe that the next critical problem for our industry will be bringing that capability back to us and maintaining that sovereignty,” he said. He wants to do it without state help: “We don't want to rely on government subsidies to create an effective business model.”

The pitch to customers is the cost of changing a design rather than the price of a part. Switching a production line to a variant is usually expensive, which pushes component suppliers towards fixed catalogs. Mochen says standard raw-material inputs and a software-driven line cut that cost close to nothing, and that buyers in India, Poland and Africa come to Atlas even with Chinese suppliers available because they get the design made to their specification faster.

## FAQ

**Q: What does Atlas Motion make?**
Electric motors and actuators for drones and robots, engineered in Long Beach, California and mass-produced in the Philippines.

**Q: What is Vector?**
Atlas Motion's own engineering software. Mochen says it takes a written specification, runs the simulations an engineer would otherwise run by hand, and generates the manufacturing packages for the design.

**Q: How much has Atlas Motion raised and who invested?**
An $11.5 million Series A led by Greycroft, with Also Capital, Enea Capital, Mana Ventures and Sunflower Capital, and angels Jai Malik and Scott Sanders.

**Q: Have the design-speed and volume claims been checked independently?**
No. The five to 10 minute design time, the accuracy figure, the monthly volumes and the six-week production timeline are all figures the company has given, and it has not named a customer.