- Recent Funding
- Founders
- Hardik Kabaria
About Hardik
Hardik Kabaria is the Founder and CEO of Vinci, a company that provides an AI-native computational platform for hardware engineering. He co-founded Vinci in 2023 with Sarah Osentoski to build a foundation model for physics that can deliver simulation results for complex hardware designs. Before Vinci, Kabaria worked at Carbon, focusing on accelerating physics simulation and computational software for engineering workflows. He holds a PhD from Stanford University.
Strengths: founder archetype
one sourced signal · hover a cell for it, click for the source
Why technical builder
Hardik Kabaria's background includes a PhD from Stanford Engineering and extensive experience in physics simulation and computational software. He is deeply involved in the technical vision of Vinci, focusing on building a foundation model for physics and scaling its capabilities.
The signals behind it 5
- Building @VinciPhysics, @StanfordEng PhD'15Technical builder · ResearcherX
- I have spent the last 15 years focused on accelerating physics simulation and computational software for real engineering workflows.Technical builder · Domain operator
P - Before co-founding Vinci, I worked at Carbon, where I partnered with design and engineering teams at companies such as Specialized Bicycle Components and Ford to help bring better products to market faster.Domain operator
P - As the company's co-founder and CEO, Hardik Kabaria leads the strategic and technical vision to transform how engineers simulate physical realities like heat and stress.Technical builder
P - Founded in 2023 by computational geometry expert Hardik Kabaria and machine learning and autonomous systems leader Sarah Osentoski, Vinci has built a platform that merges physics, geometry, and high-performance computingTechnical builder · Researcher
P
Hardik Kabaria | Stanford PhD to Physics AI Founder
Every tag links its source.
Network
Timeline, line by line 11
- Vinci raised $250M (Series B+).Oct 6, 2026
P - Spoke at Ai4 about world models and AI reasoning about cause and effect.Aug 7, 2026X
- Interviewed by Pulse 2.0 about Vinci and the future of physics intelligence.May 20, 2026
P - Posted about the shift to Continuous Physics Reasoning.May 6, 2026X
- Announced the deployment of a foundation model for physics for hardware design.Dec 3, 2025X
- Vinci closed its Series A funding round.2025
G - Experienced a breakthrough in system architecture for Vinci on a flight back from Singapore.2024
P - Announced hiring for Vinci's founding engineering team.Nov 2, 2023X
- Co-founded Vinci with Sarah Osentoski.2023
G - Expressed excitement about combining forces with Paramatters.Aug 24, 2022X
- Announced the launch of Carbon's Design Engine.Feb 8, 2022X
In their words
8
- “That experience made something very clear to me: as hardware systems become more complex, the traditional simulation stack becomes a major bottleneck. That insight ultimately led to Vinci.”Reflecting on his experience at Carbon and the motivation behind founding Vinci. · May 20, 2026
P - “The idea for Vinci came from a simple observation: the physical world is becoming too complex for legacy simulation workflows to keep up.”Explaining the origin of Vinci's concept. · May 20, 2026
P - “We’ve faced the same challenge every true category creator runs into: most of our competition isn’t another vendor; it’s decades of muscle memory about how simulation is supposed to work.”Discussing challenges faced in the industry. · May 20, 2026
P - “Physics is an essential modality to reason through for every phase of the hardware design to production to operation life cycle.”Emphasizing the importance of physics in hardware design. · Aug 12, 2026X
- “Most of hardware’s hardest problems are no longer design problems. They’re physics problems that surface too late to act on.”Highlighting a critical issue in hardware development. · Jul 27, 2026X
- “AI for physics is the next frontier. Engineering, robotics, AVs, manufacturing, energy, and the entire hardware economy will run on models that com”Predicting the future impact of AI in physics. · Jun 9, 2026X
- “We’ve normalized making engineering decisions without physics in the room. That should bother us.”Expressing concern about current engineering practices. · May 12, 2026X
- “The next bottleneck is not generating text faster. It is reasoning through physical constraints fast enough to matter.”Identifying the next major challenge in AI. · May 6, 2026X
Team at Vinci
- Sarah OsentoskiCo-Founder & CTO@saucentoss
G - VRVincent RerolleCo-Founder & CCO
G
Interviews and coverage
4
- Vinci: Interview With Founder & CEO Hardik Kabaria On The Future of Physics IntelligencePulse 2.0 · May 20, 2026
P - Software startup Vinci raises $250 million at a $1.5 billion valuation101 WIXX · Oct 7, 2026
W - Vinci: $46 Million Closed To Launch Physics-Driven AI Platform For Semiconductor DesignPulse 2.0 · Dec 6, 2025
P - Temasek-backed Xora Innovation leads US$36 million Series A funding in VinciThe Business Times · Dec 2, 2025
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How this is researched
Researched from public pages: press, interviews, the company's site and the founder's own posts. Each source logo links the page that states the row; anything we couldn't source is left out. The archetype is our reading of that record, from a fixed set so founders can be compared. Updated Oct 12, 2026.
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