AI-powered pricing, quoting, and cross-sell automation for chemical and specialty manufacturing companies.
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.
Total raised
$3M
Last stage
Seed
Investors
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.
Wayne Cheng
Founding software engineer and AI full-stack developer.
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.
LinkedInMalay 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.
LinkedInNo applications, no recruiter spam. Just the intro.
A few questions to make sure this role is the right shape for you. Two minutes.
I write the intro, send it to the founder, and handle the back-and-forth.
If they’re a yes, I book the chat. You show up — that’s the whole job-hunt.