Welcome Natan Linder, Co-Founder and CEO of Tulip Interfaces on this episode of 🔥The Lantern 🔥
Tulip Interfaces helps manufacturers build production systems that put people first with no code, low code, and other AI tools to turn operational knowledge into apps, workflows, and continuous improvement.
🔍 What happened in 2025 as the team heads into 2026? 🔎
Tulip wrapped their largest-ever “Operations Calling” conference with 700+ attendees to end 2025.
Their platform is processing north of 620 million automations, 70 million application-based processes, and 35 million station hours. They’re about to cross 30 billion contextualized data points!
They also acquired the talented Akooda (acquired by Tulip) team, led by Yuval Gonczarowski, bringing enterprise AI search and deep learning expertise into their platform to help customers sift through massive operational datasets.
In January, they announced a $120M fundraise led by Mitsubishi, that values Tulip at $1.3B.
🤔 Why does manufacturing need specialized AI? 🤔
Unlike software engineers who can freely experiment with their AI agents, real world operations require more rigor. Downtime and/or destroyed raw materials costs millions.
Tulip is building AI copilots, composer products, and full agentic frameworks that are safe for the factory floor in regulated industries like pharma, medical devices, and aerospace.
🧠 What has Natan learned from building Tulip? 🧠
Work very close to customers.
Natan believes a startup’s focus should be split into 80% on customers, 10% on markets, and 10% for hallucinations.
That customer obsession drove their Akooda (acquired by Tulip) acquisition. Operations leaders are knowledge workers too and need AI verticalized for their specific needs to democratize access to manufacturing expertise and elevate operations teams.
🤝 How can we help Tulip scale? 🤝
Tulip is in full growth mode heading into 2026. If you’re an engineer passionate about manufacturing, AI, or hard tech, or know world-class operators who want to transform how physical products get made, reach out!
Boston is building the future of intelligent manufacturing and Tulip is leading the charge.