Sohrab Haghighat
Hestus, a Y Combinator S24 startup, secured $1.5 million in seed funding led by Liquid2 and Rock Yard Ventures to automate repetitive CAD tasks and boost engineers’ efficiency. Additional investment came via Y Combinator, Kyle Vogt (Cruise and Twitch co-founder), and Eric Migicovsky (Pebble founder and former YC partner).
Hestus was founded by Sohrab Haghighat and Kevin Chu—both among the first 10 employees at Cruise—who later led engineering teams at SpaceRyde (rocket logistics) and Mendaera (medical devices). Their combined experience informs the company’s focus on mission-critical system design. The startup aims to address a common industry pain point: the time sink of repetitive mechanical design tasks. Its platform can automatically recommend required changes to different components in a design when another is modified.
At Hestus, we’re tackling a fundamental bottleneck in mechanical engineering: the time wasted on redesigning components that should be trivial but aren’t—like mounting holes for a rocket’s fuel tank.
While competitors push fully generative AI, Hestus emphasizes engineer-defined parameters. Its platform updates interdependent components (e.g., modifying a rocket’s fuel tank automatically adjusts mounting holes) but requires explicit user approval for changes—a safeguard against “AI overreach.” In a press release, CEO Haghighat noted that many generative tools “often take significant time modifying outputs to satisfy real-world requirements” (paraphrased from the original). Investor Daniel Dart of Rock Yard Ventures praised Hestus as the first team with the background and ability to “truly 100x output capabilities” for engineers everywhere.
Hesus in Autodesk Fusion
One of the main emphases of our approach is to meet engineers where they are and keep in the design loop. In the bottom-up approach that we are building, engineers are in the designer seat and go through the design like they always do. As they do that Hestus AI anticipates their future steps, and gives them suggestions that stop them from making costly mistakes and make them faster.
Its Sketch Helper plugin for Autodesk Fusion 360, which debuted in September 2024, automates routine tasks like interference checks and parametric adjustments while preserving human oversight. It is available in the Autodesk app store.
Competition in the AI-CAD segment is heating up as established players like Autodesk advance Project Bernini’s model for 3D geometry, while newer entrants like Bananaz ($5.3M seed) target design validation workflows. Industry projections suggest the AI-CAD market could eclipse $10 billion in the coming years, according to various analyst estimates, as demand for workflow automation tools grows.
According to the founders, Hestus plans to roll out a major Sketch Helper update in April 2025, timed with an upcoming hackathon. This release will introduce advanced compatibility checks and deeper integrations with other design tools. In parallel, Hestus is expanding its team to support a broader range of CAD platforms.
One of the main advantages of what we are building is that it is industry agnostic. Anyone who is designing a mechanical component can benefit from our technology. Ultimately, we expect to significantly reduce the number of mistakes and make engineers more efficient in their design work. In general of 100% of a design, 20-30% is the creative work of conceptual design and the rest is documenting that design in the CAD. The documentation of the design in CAD involves a lot of tedious and repetitive work, Hestus will automate that portion so engineers can focus on the creative aspect.
[CAD-driven engineering skills remain a core STEM skill cluster. For more on that theme, check out “6 in-demand R&D and STEM skill clusters for 2025“]
