Wire harnesses — the intricate internal electrical cabling networks threaded through rockets, aircraft, submarines, and increasingly smart ground vehicles — have remained remarkably unchanged for decades. Jordan Black, a former SpaceX engineer who once led efforts to scale wire harness production for the company's next-generation Starship rocket, discovered this firsthand after traveling the globe visiting harness manufacturers.
"It really hasn't changed since the Cold War era of wooden tables [and] manual processes," Black told TechCrunch. That realization became the founding impulse for Senra, a startup he launched in 2023 alongside co-founder Benjamin Shanahan to bring modern software tools and automation to an industry that has long relied on the craftsmanship of experienced technicians.
A $65 Million Vote of Confidence
Senra is now announcing a $65 million Series B funding round, co-led by Lowercarbon and Interlagos. The round drew participation from a roster of prominent investors including General Catalyst, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and Founders Fund, among others.
The capital arrives amid a broader surge of investment into American manufacturing, with particular momentum in the defense industrial base. While Black could not name specific customers, he indicated that Senra's client roster spans builders of submarines and maritime vehicles, land-based defense vehicle systems, launch vehicles, and satellites.
Software First, Robots Later
Despite the push for modernization, Senra is not attempting to remove human technicians from the equation — at least not yet. Black acknowledged that robots currently struggle with the physical manipulation of wires, and relevant training data for automating such tasks remains scarce. Instead, the company is focusing on software tools and selective automation to upgrade specific elements of the traditional manual workflow.
Central to this approach is Amp, Senra's proprietary software platform. Amp standardizes inputs throughout the wiring process and generates a digital twin that guides technicians through their work. These technicians are trained through what Black describes as the only federally certified wire harness training program in existence.
Black emphasized that consolidating every input and engineering change within a single software environment is critical to preventing downstream failures. He pointed to a 2023 incident in which Boeing discovered that the wiring in its Starliner spacecraft had been secured with flammable tape, forcing a costly delay while the entire system was rebuilt. For Black, that episode underscores the need for automated material tracking and rigorous engineering-change management throughout the harness production lifecycle.