Axal

Axal is an engineering services firm that takes hardware teams from breadboard prototype to verified, production-ready PCBs. Instead of juggling separate vendors for design, component sourcing, assembly, and testing, you work with a single integrated team that handles each step—or just the ones you need. The service starts with a free 30-minute engineering review, where Axal's engineers examine your design or prototype and flag layout risks, component issues, and manufacturability problems before you commit to a build. Axal then sources BOM parts, assembles boards in-house (no third-party handoffs), verifies quality through X-ray inspection and electrical testing, and ships tested boards with documentation of what was assembled and checked. The team also manages rework in-house when issues arise, so you don't diagnose a mystery shipment on your own. Axal supports any stage of development: an idea, a working breadboard or dev board, an existing PCB needing redesign, or finished design files ready for manufacturing. The company is backed by Y Combinator and founded by engineers from Amazon and Microsoft, and serves US-based hardware teams in agriculture, smart glasses, medical devices, robotics, and similar fields. Firmware and software development are not offered, so if your project requires code beyond the hardware, you'll need a separate partner. Pricing is project-based and requires a consultation—there's no self-serve web portal. Axal positions itself as an engineering partner rather than a pure contract manufacturer, offering judgment during design and sourcing that a build-to-file fabricator won't provide. For US hardware startups that want a single point of accountability from design to tested boards, Axal cuts the coordination overhead that slows many prototype-to-production journeys.