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Prox

AI product specialists for equipment manufacturers

Prox turns product expertise into revenue for equipment manufacturers. Equipment buyers rarely begin with a model number. They begin with a job, an installed system, a constraint, or a problem. The knowledge needed to qualify, recommend, configure, quote, repair, replace, or upgrade the product is scattered across manuals, catalogs, spreadsheets, calculators, product managers, applications engineers, dealer processes, support teams, and legacy systems. The result is abandoned demand, slow qualification, wrong-fit recommendations, quote delays, weak dealer follow-up, missed parts and service revenue, and dependence on a few experienced people. Prox builds AI product specialists for equipment manufacturers. A product specialist uses the manufacturer's approved product knowledge, expert rules, calculators, and connected systems to move customers and frontline teams from a complex product question to the right purchase, quote, dealer, parts, service, replacement, or upgrade path. How it works: 1. Understand what the person is trying to accomplish. 2. Resolve the product, application, and operating context already available. 3. Ask only for the missing information that changes the result. 4. Apply approved sources, expert rules, and deterministic tools (calculators, selectors, configurators, comparisons). 5. Produce a supported, cited recommendation, configuration, procedure, or decision artifact. 6. Move the person into the correct cart, quote, RFQ, BOM, dealer, sales, parts, service, replacement, upgrade, or expert action with the context preserved. One product specialist, many governed skills: product discovery and comparison, sizing and configuration, competitive defense, quote preparation, dealer enablement, installation and commissioning, troubleshooting, parts identification, and approved service, replacement, and upgrade paths. Manufacturers deploy those skills to customers, dealers, sales teams, applications engineers, support teams, or field service. Existing CRM, CPQ, commerce, and support systems stay in place. Support and service are revenue-bearing surfaces. The specialist resolves the customer's problem first, then surfaces the approved part, service, replacement, or upgrade path only when the evidence supports it.
Active Founders
Dima Yanovsky
Dima Yanovsky
Founder
mit '25
Gregory Makodzeba
Gregory Makodzeba
Founder
> founded Rektoff (built security systems protecting >$100B; clients: Solana) > led DevRel at Runtime Verification (among clients: NASA, Boeing) > grew up in a family distribution business > studied aviation management and computer science
Company Launches
Prox: digital co-workers for logistics operations
See original launch post

Greg and Dima here - childhood friends, grew up in our families’ warehouses - now YC founders building Prox.

launch video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ywl-K7ncj0


tldr:

Prox builds digital workforce for third-party logistics and fulfillment providers. We deployed our first agents at ShipBob (unicorn 3PL handling 100+ million packages per year) to automate carrier claims for lost-in-transit packages. They're now live in production, processing hundreds of claims in parallel and on track to recover millions in carrier refunds annually.

what is 3PL?

third-party logistics companies (3PLs) are the invisible infrastructure behind e-commerce brands: they warehouse inventory, fulfill orders, manage returns, and negotiate with carriers so brands don't have to.

the problem:

40,000+ 3PLs in the US all do the same thing: throw people at operational bottlenecks.

❌ Claims processing done manually, one by one
❌ Invoice reconciliation eating hours of labor
❌ Compliance paperwork blocking growth
❌ Every increase in package volume = more back-office hires

That's the margin trap. Logistics companies stuck at 3-5% margins because headcount scales linearly with volume of packages. You can't compound when labor costs are linear.

what we built:

We developed an n8n-inspired agent building platform - native to logistics infrastructure. It integrates with Salesforce, warehouse & transportation management systems, carrier portals, Microsoft Teams, and email → then executes SOPs end-to-end.

With this platform, we can deploy agents in production in a matter of days.

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use case: ShipBob Carrier Claims Automation

Here’s an example of how our agents handle lost package claims for ShipBob, one of the biggest 3PLs in the US.

first demo at ShipBob HQ in Chicago

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When a package goes missing - our agent orchestrates resolution: pull order data, calculates refund amounts, files with carriers, monitors responses, parses updates, syncs internal systems, escalates exceptions - hundreds running in parallel.

Our agents do not stop at task execution - we designed them to own outcomes. If a carrier doesn't respond, the agent follows up. If documentation is missing, it fetches it. Each agent has one objective: get the claim resolved.

about us:

Gregory Makodzeba:

  • Founded Rektoff: built blockchain security infrastructure protecting $100B+ in crypto assets (clients: Solana Foundation)
  • Led Developer Relations at Runtime Verification, working with NASA, Boeing, and Ethereum Foundation on formal verification for mission-critical systems
  • Grew up implementing ERP and WMS systems in the family distribution business

Dima Yanovsky:

  • MIT grad: Computer Science + Electrical Engineering
  • Robotics research at MIT CSAIL under Prof. Pulkit Agrawal on manipulation policies;
  • Built internal and customer-facing AI agents at Pulley (YC W20) during early GPT era
  • Spent childhood automating warehouse operations and business processes

We both grew up in our parents' warehouses. When we weren't moving boxes around, we were doing the mundane back-office work every warehouse has (filing claims, reconciling invoices, chasing carriers). This was the pre-LLM era, so we had no choice but to grind through manual workflows. We saw firsthand how coordination became the biggest constraint on growth - and how no software could actually handle it end-to-end.

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We deeply understand the ontology of logistics operations. That's why we can ship integrations in days, not months. We're building the digital workforce we wish existed back then.

If you're running logistics operations at a 3PL, fulfillment center, or freight forwarder, or know someone who is - reach out: founders@prox.inc


YC Photos
Jobs at Prox
San Francisco, CA, US
$200K
1.00%
Any (new grads ok)
San Francisco, CA
$130K - $180K
0.25% - 0.75%
Any (new grads ok)
San Francisco, CA
$100K - $120K
Any (new grads ok)
San Francisco, CA
$90K - $130K
Any (new grads ok)
San Francisco, CA
$160K - $190K
0.35% - 0.75%
Any (new grads ok)
Prox
Founded:2025
Batch:Fall 2025
Team Size:7
Status:
Active
Location:San Francisco
Primary Partner:Harj Taggar