Squint

Squint is a Manufacturing Intelligence Platform that uses artificial intelligence and augmented reality to bridge the critical knowledge gap in global manufacturing operations.[1][3] Founded in 2021 and headquartered in San Jose, California, the company has developed a mobile application that automates data entry, generates custom procedures, and transforms factory floor operators into confident, expert-level workers equipped with just-in-time digital knowledge.[1][2]

The platform addresses one of manufacturing's most pressing challenges: the exodus of experienced workers taking decades of operational knowledge with them, leaving companies struggling to maintain quality and efficiency with increasingly inexperienced workforces.[3] Squint's solution captures expert knowledge, standardizes work processes, and delivers augmented reality-based guidance directly to operators on the factory floor, enabling them to navigate complex tasks with confidence while improving safety, throughput, and quality.[1][3]

Origin Story

Squint emerged from founder and CEO Devin Bhushan's direct observation of manufacturing's generational inflection point. Bhushan, who previously served as an Engineering Manager for AR at Splunk, recognized both a critical problem and a compelling opportunity: valuable operational knowledge was literally walking out the door as experienced workers retired, leaving companies vulnerable to quality issues and inefficiency.[3]

The founding team brought deep technical expertise from their Splunk backgrounds. Beyond Bhushan, the core team includes Dylan Conway (Founding Product Lead, former Product Manager at Splunk), Jim Zhu (Founding Architect, former Software Engineer at Splunk), and Benjamin Weaver (Director of Engineering, former Engineering Manager at Splunk).[2][4] This cohesive team's shared experience in AR and software engineering proved instrumental in translating Bhushan's vision into a practical, deployable solution.

Early traction validated the concept rapidly. By January 2023, Squint had secured customers including Berkshire Hathaway Energy, Hershey, Michelin, and Volvo—marquee names that signaled both product-market fit and enterprise credibility.[2] The company raised $18 million in funding from prestigious investors Sequoia Capital and Menlo Ventures, backing that reflects confidence in both the team and the massive addressable market.[2][5]

Core Differentiators

Machine Recognition Without Infrastructure Requirements

Unlike traditional AR solutions that demand QR codes or CAD models, Squint employs computer vision technology that recognizes machinery directly—functioning similarly to how facial recognition works, but for industrial equipment.[3] This eliminates a critical barrier to adoption and deployment, allowing customers to onboard in a single day rather than weeks of setup and configuration.[3]

Consumer-Grade Simplicity for Industrial Complexity

Squint's breakthrough lies in translating intimidating AI and AR technologies into intuitive, consumer-grade applications that every factory floor operator can navigate with confidence.[1] This democratization of advanced technology means adoption doesn't require extensive training or technical sophistication from end users.

Rapid Deployment and Integration

The platform integrates seamlessly with existing training programs and operational workflows, enabling same-day customer onboarding.[3] This speed-to-value is a significant competitive advantage in an industry where implementation timelines typically stretch across months.

Comprehensive Industry Coverage

Squint serves diverse manufacturing sectors including automotive, food and beverage, oil and gas, heavy industrials, equipment manufacturing, consumer packaged goods, and energy.[1] This horizontal applicability across verticals reduces dependency on any single industry and creates multiple expansion vectors.

Role in the Broader Tech Landscape

Squint sits at the intersection of three powerful technological and economic trends reshaping manufacturing globally.

The AI and Computer Vision Inflection Point

The company is riding the wave of mature computer vision and AI infrastructure that has only recently become practical and cost-effective for real-time factory floor deployment.[1] Five years ago, the technology Squint leverages would have been prohibitively expensive or unreliable; today, it's becoming commoditized, enabling startups to build sophisticated applications atop these foundations.

The Great Manufacturing Skills Crisis

Demographic shifts across developed economies are creating an unprecedented knowledge transfer problem. Experienced workers are retiring faster than younger workers can be trained, and the tacit knowledge embedded in their expertise is nearly impossible to codify through traditional documentation.[3] Squint's timing is impeccable—this crisis will intensify over the next decade, making solutions like theirs increasingly essential rather than optional.

The Shift Toward Augmented Worker Productivity

Rather than automating jobs away, Squint represents a broader ecosystem trend toward augmenting human capability. The platform doesn't replace operators; it makes them more effective, safer, and more confident. This human-centric approach to automation is gaining traction across industries as companies recognize that the most sustainable competitive advantage comes from empowered, capable workforces rather than pure labor displacement.

Supply Chain Resilience and Localization

Global supply chain disruptions have renewed focus on manufacturing efficiency and resilience. Companies are investing in optimizing existing operations rather than building new capacity, making software solutions that improve throughput and quality increasingly valuable.[3]

Quick Take & Future Outlook

Squint is positioned at the forefront of visual reasoning in AI applications—a domain Bhushan himself predicts will see exponential growth over the coming years.[3] The company's expansion trajectory suggests movement beyond manufacturing into adjacent sectors including energy, healthcare, and hospitality, where similar knowledge transfer challenges exist.[2]

The core thesis remains compelling: a $7 trillion manufacturing industry facing a generational knowledge crisis, armed with increasingly capable AI and AR technology, and served by a team that understands both the problem domain and the technical solution space intimately. Squint's early customer roster of global industrial leaders validates that the problem is acute enough to command budget and attention from enterprise buyers.

The company's influence on the broader ecosystem will likely manifest in two ways. First, as a proof point that AI and AR can solve real, high-stakes operational problems in unglamorous but economically critical industries—potentially attracting more venture capital to industrial tech. Second, as a template for how to build consumer-grade user experiences for complex enterprise problems, influencing how other startups approach the design and deployment of advanced technologies in traditional industries.

The next phase will test whether Squint can scale beyond its current customer base, maintain product-market fit as it expands into new verticals, and defend against larger technology companies that might recognize the opportunity and attempt to build competing solutions. For now, the company has captured a critical moment in manufacturing's evolution—when the convergence of demographic necessity, technological capability, and economic incentive creates a rare window for transformative change.