Westmag, a South San Francisco manufacturer of drone motors and robot actuators, has raised $11 million in seed funding and come out of stealth. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Founders Fund, Lux Capital, NFDG, and Menlo Ventures. The company, co-founded by David Hansen and Jordan Sanders, was set up to address a specific gap: the United States has almost no domestic production of the small electric motors and actuators that make drones fly and robots move.
For context, China supplies approximately 80% of the global market for these components, a position it has built through decades of investment in manufacturing infrastructure, including the rare earth magnets and precision steel parts that go into every motor. American drone and robot companies have long sourced from that supply chain by default, and Westmag argues this creates real vulnerabilities in resilience and production speed.
The regulatory backdrop has changed significantly. In December 2025, the Federal Communications Commission effectively banned the sale of new models of foreign-made drones and critical components, including motors. The rule is forward-looking — it covers new models, not hardware already on the market — but it removes a key option for American drone manufacturers that previously had no reason to look elsewhere.
The robotics market faces a similar exposure. A humanoid robot contains 20 or more actuators, each built around an electric motor. As companies scale toward mass production of humanoid robots, the volume of motors needed will grow sharply. Westmag is working to build domestic capacity in both categories, using a shared design platform across drone motors and robot actuators to reduce costs and engineering duplication.
"Motors and actuators are the muscle of physical AI, and right now America's share of that muscle is essentially zero," said Erin Price-Wright, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. "Without a domestic industry, every American drone company, every robotics company and every defense prime is building on a foundation they do not control. David and Jordan understand that the win condition is not a marginally better motor. It is the ability to make a lot of them, here, on a platform that serves both drones and robots."
Since closing the round in 2025, Westmag has been focused on building production capacity rather than going to market broadly. The company is currently ramping output at Factory 01, its manufacturing facility and headquarters in South San Francisco, working to fulfill committed orders totaling hundreds of thousands of units from a select group of high-volume customers.
The company is also investing upstream. That means developing its own capacity for subcomponent production, specifically electromagnet stator steel stamping and rare earth magnet finishing. Both steps are aimed at lowering input costs and tightening control over the full bill of materials. For a company at seed stage, this level of vertical integration is uncommon. It reflects a manufacturing-first approach rather than one focused purely on product design.
Hiring is active across manufacturing, supply chain, design engineering, automation, sales, and operations. Open roles include motor and actuator design engineers, NPI engineers, mechatronics engineers, and a Head of People.
Westmag is short for Western Magnetics Company. Hansen serves as CEO and Sanders as COO. The company designs and manufactures brushless DC electric motors — a type of motor that uses magnets and electrical current to generate rotation without physical contact between parts — along with integrated actuators for robots. Everything is designed and built in South San Francisco.
The company's production platform covers a range of drone motor sizes, from 20 to 100mm stator diameter, and robot actuators delivering between 1 and 150 Nm of torque, a measure of rotational force. The supply chain is built to comply with the NDAA, the U.S. defense authorization act that restricts procurement of Chinese-origin components, with sourcing from the U.S. and allied countries. Westmag already has partnerships in Japan.
The shared architecture between drone motors and robot actuators is central to how the company plans to scale. A drone motor forms the core of a robot actuator, so improvements to one feed directly into the other. The team includes engineers from MIT, Cornell, the University of Waterloo, and UBC, as well as people with backgrounds in automotive manufacturing at scale.
"Western drone and robot companies should benefit from the compounding advantages of reliable, cost effective domestic component supply," said Jordan Sanders, Co-Founder and COO of Westmag. "That's why we're building Westmag to be the great American motor company serving the global market."
Andreessen Horowitz led the seed round. The firm has been investing under an "American Dynamism" thesis, which focuses on defense, manufacturing, energy, and industrials. The Westmag deal was driven by Erin Price-Wright, a general partner at the firm whose investment focus covers robotics, energy, manufacturing, industrials, and defense. Founders Fund, Lux Capital, NFDG, and Menlo Ventures also participated.
