Launching Aurorin: Create in seconds what takes 20 minutes in SolidWorks
Backed by Y Combinator
Aurorin launched through Y Combinator's Winter 2026 (W26) batch.
TL;DR: Aurorin is new professional CAD software, built from the ground up to be extremely fast and AI native. A part that takes an experienced SolidWorks user 20 minutes to make only takes seconds in Aurorin. It's available today for Mac and Windows.
The problem
There are two problems with CAD today. First, it's slow — opening a large assembly in existing software can take hours. Second, designing with it is tedious: even simple changes cascade into many manual steps to fix downstream features, constraints, and references.
The root cause is the kernel. Almost all existing CAD software — SolidWorks, NX, Creo, Catia, Fusion 360, Onshape — is built on the same couple of geometric kernels that were written in the 1980s, for hardware that looks nothing like what we have today.
What we built
Aurorin is a native CAD application with a custom parametric and B-Rep kernel we built from scratch to take full advantage of modern hardware. That's what makes it fast — parts and assemblies that crawl in legacy tools stay responsive in Aurorin.
Building our own kernel also let us design a much better AI interface than legacy architectures allow. Aurorin seamlessly combines traditional UI editing with an integrated chat interface, so you can design even highly complex parts at incredible speed. A part that takes an experienced SolidWorks user 20 minutes to make only takes seconds in Aurorin.
Who's building it
I'm Michael, the founder. Before Aurorin I worked at SpaceX on Raptor combustion simulation, Dragon guidance, navigation & control, and Starshield flight software, and at Apple on GPU driver performance. I've felt the pain of slow, tedious CAD firsthand, and I started Aurorin to build the tool I always wished I had.
The ask
We're looking for two kinds of people:
- Hardware companies who want to prototype and design faster.
- Design engineers who'll try Aurorin and tell us what they think.
Aurorin is available today for Mac and Windows. You can download it for free at aurorincad.com, and if you'd like to talk, reach me at michael@aurorincad.com.