Matan Grinberg

Grinberg is a member of Princeton University’s Class of 2020.⁠[1]

In 2023 Grinberg was a Ph.D. student in physics at the University of California, Berkeley, working on string theory. He later said he had lost interest in string theory by then, and he cold-emailed Shaun MaguireShaun MaguireShaun Maguire is a venture capitalist and a partner on Sequoia Capital’s seed/early team; he earned a PhD at Caltech and previously co-founded the cybersecurity company Qadium (later renamed Expanse) and served as a partner at GV.Open the full entry, a Sequoia CapitalSequoia CapitalSequoia Capital is a venture capital firm founded by Don Valentine in 1972, investing from the seed stage through the growth stage. Its historical investments include Apple, Cisco, Google, YouTube, Airbnb, and Stripe; in 2021 it introduced the Sequoia Capital Fund structure, which can continue to hold public securities, and in 2023 its regional businesses became independent brands and partnerships.Open the full entry partner who also holds a physics Ph.D., to talk about it.⁠[1][2][3]

Their meeting became a three-hour walk in which Maguire suggested he join Twitter, join one of Maguire’s portfolio companies or start a company. The day after the walk, Grinberg met for coffee with Eno Reyes, a machine learning engineer and Princeton Class of 2021 graduate he had seen at a San Francisco hackathon, and they decided to start a company together; he described the meeting as “intellectual love at first sight.”⁠[1]

The two built a demo of Factory in 72 hours. After Grinberg emailed the demo to Maguire, Maguire urged him to drop out of his Ph.D. program and send a screenshot as confirmation; Grinberg did, and Maguire set up a pitch to Sequoia Capital the next day, after which Sequoia invested. Grinberg left the program and co-founded the AI software development company Factory (AI coding company) with Reyes, serving as its chief executive.⁠[1][4]

Grinberg and Reyes were named to the 2025 ForbesForbesForbes is an American business media brand that began with Forbes magazine, founded by B.C. Forbes in 1917. It is known for rankings such as the Forbes 400, the World’s Billionaires list and 30 Under 30, and operates Forbes.com, ForbesLive events and licensed editions in 81 countries. Since 2014 a majority stake has been held by the Hong Kong investment group Integrated Whale Media; a 2021 plan to list on the New York Stock Exchange through a special purpose acquisition company was terminated in 2022. It is headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey.Open the full entry 30 Under 30 list in the AI category. As of January 2025, Factory had raised $20 million.⁠[2][1]

On September 25, 2025, Factory announced a $50 million Series B. In the press release Grinberg said: “Agent‑native development presents the most substantive shift in software development since the move to the cloud.”⁠[5]

In a December 2025 Princeton Alumni Weekly feature, Grinberg recalled being nearly in tears on the call when Factory signed its first paying customer. He said Factory “raises the leverage” of each engineer, and on the outlook for software engineering he said: “The number of developers working is going to be strictly increasing.”⁠[1]

On April 16, 2026, Grinberg and Reyes co-signed the announcement of Factory’s $150 million Series C, led by Khosla VenturesKhosla VenturesKhosla Ventures (KV) is an American venture capital firm founded in 2004 by Vinod Khosla, the founding CEO of Sun Microsystems, and headquartered in Menlo Park, California. It made heavy early bets on clean technology, became OpenAI’s first venture capital investor in 2019, and its portfolio also includes companies such as DoorDash, Block (formerly Square), Impossible Foods, and Rocket Lab.Open the full entry, at a $1.5 billion valuation.⁠[6]

On September 15, 2026, the two again co-signed an announcement that Factory had raised $200 million at a $5 billion valuation, bringing its total funding to more than $400 million.⁠[7]

Factory: Official website: https://factory.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[4]