Zabidou raises A$3.5M for factory quality control after founder's self-driving startup collapsed
What's the deal? ZabidouDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has raised a A$3.5 million seed round led by Black NovaDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Main SequenceDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and AntlerDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. The Australian startup, founded in July 2025 by Cibby PulikkaserilDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, uses cameras and lasers to automate quality assurance in factories. It had previously raised $1.8 million in pre-seed funding.
Why now? Zabidou is Pulikkaseril's second act after his first startup, Baraja, collapsed. Baraja developed LiDAR to help self-driving cars "see" and hit a $300 million valuation in 2021, but long commercialisation timelines and a crowded market forced it to cut 75% of staff two years later. By 2024, some investors had reportedly written its value down to zero.
What's the endgame? This time, Pulikkaseril is building for "the factories of today rather than autonomous cars of the future." Zabidou's system sits at the end of a conveyor belt and scans outputs like steel and concrete to confirm they meet specifications. "The camera that we use is the vision, and the lasers give us the touch," he said.
The product: Zabidou's first customers came from construction, after Pulikkaseril met a manufacturer struggling to find staff to inspect railway support beams. Its systems now run at 15 sites across six customers — including a petfood maker — and cost around half as much as a human operator. AI coding tools cut the cost of customising software for each client.
Why it matters: Manufacturers factor in a "cost of poor quality," often equal to 15-20% of sales, and can't afford to test every output. A 2025 survey found nearly half of US manufacturers ranked slow inspection among their top challenges. "It's very hard to find people to do those jobs, especially in regional parts of Australia," Pulikkaseril said.
The signal: The round sits in the 61st percentile by amount, a modest raise reflecting a founder deliberately choosing a market that exists over one "yet to materialise." Black Nova founding partner Darcy Naunton said the firm had sought a manufacturing startup for "some time," noting most either solve "low value" problems or demand deep factory integration. "Zabidou is the opposite of that in every way that matters," he said.
Read more: Forbes Australia
Image credit: U.S. Department of Agriculture
