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Poka Labs

Poka Labs

AI-powered pricing, quoting, and cross-sell automation for chemical and specialty manufacturing companies.

San Francisco, CA
5 employees
ai, manufacturing, enterprise, b2b
Seed · $500K
Founded 2024
Website

About Poka Labs

Poka Labs builds AI-powered digital workers for the chemical and specialty manufacturing industry. From quote to shipment, leading chemical companies use Poka Labs' AI platform to automate operations and elevate customer experiences.

The company tackles a massive inefficiency in chemical manufacturing: the quoting and pricing process. A typical quote involves decoding product configurations, checking inventory, factoring in tariffs, freight, customer history, and competition. Poka Labs' AI agents do this work 24/7, turning a week-long process into five minutes. Win rates go up, margins improve, and customers grow.

Poka Labs is YC-backed (W24) with investment from Pioneer Fund, Flybridge, and Liquid 2 Ventures. The company is deployed at Fortune 100 enterprises and mid-market manufacturers, having recently closed its first seven-figure deal and expanding into European deployments with GDPR-compliant infrastructure.

Founded by Harvard HBS alumni with deep domain experience in both technology (ex-Facebook) and the chemical industry, Poka Labs is building the intelligence layer of modern manufacturing from their San Francisco office.

Benefits

  • • Free lunch
  • • Free dinner (when working late)
  • • Equity (0.5–1.25%)
  • • Customer travel opportunities
  • • True ownership over core architecture and product
  • • Direct collaboration with founders
  • • New office (upcoming move)

Open positions (6)

Product Designer (Contract)

Contract
San Francisco, CA
$4k – $7k

Mid/Senior Full Stack AI Engineer

Full-time
San Francisco, United States
$180k – $250k
0.5% - 1.25% equity

Full Stack AI Engineer

Full-time
San Francisco, United States
$150k – $200k
0.5% - 1% equity

Fullstack/AI Engineer

Full-time
San Francisco, CA
$120k – $170k
0.5% - 1.5% equity

Founding Deployment Strategist

Full-time
San Francisco, CA
$140k – $200k
0.5% - 0.75% equity

Fullstack / AI Engineer (4+ YOE)

Full-time
San Francisco, CA
$180k – $240k
0.5% - 1.5% equity

Company details

Team Size5
LocationSan Francisco, CA
Industryai, manufacturing, enterprise, b2b

Funding

Total raised

$500K

Last stage

Seed

Investors

Y Combinator

Founders

WC

Wayne Cheng

Founding software engineer and AI full-stack developer.

Andrew Bass

Andrew Bass

Andrew is the Co-Founder and CTO of Poka Labs. Before Poka, he worked on critical data infrastructure systems at Meta, as well as optimization software at a Series A startup (acquired) that helped mobility companies boost their revenue 40%. He has both an MBA and MS degree at Harvard where he focused on ML systems.

LinkedIn
Malay Shah

Malay Shah

Malay is the Co-Founder and CEO of Poka Labs. He earned degrees in Chemical Engineering and Economics from NC State and an MBA from Harvard Business School. With a background in the specialty chemicals industry, Malay has held various positions in operations and engineering working across plants in US, Germany, and China. His work in deploying chemical expertise with advanced analytics has saved his previous employers tens of millions of dollars.

LinkedIn

What happens next.

No applications, no recruiter spam. Just the intro.

01

Confirm the fit

A few questions to make sure this role is the right shape for you. Two minutes.

02

I pitch you to the company

I write the intro, send it to the founder, and handle the back-and-forth.

03

A meeting lands on your calendar

If they’re a yes, I book the chat. You show up — that’s the whole job-hunt.