Dan Summers is Co-Founder and CEO of 1872, an AI-native manufacturing startup building autonomous steel fabrication factories to modernize American heavy industry.

Dan earned a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering and went on to work as an engineer at SpaceX, where he gained deep expertise in systems thinking, vertical integration, and high-stakes production environments.

Drawing on the SpaceX ethos of extreme ownership and first-principles engineering, Dan co-founded 1872 with two fellow SpaceX alumni to apply those same principles to the $350 billion U.S. fabricated metals market.

Under Dan's leadership, 1872 closed a $15 million seed round from The O.H.I.O. Fund, one of the largest seed rounds in Ohio history, and launched its first autonomous factory in Cincinnati's historic Camp Washington neighborhood.

1872's AI-first Factory OS orchestrates end-to-end steel fabrication from material sourcing to robotics control, targeting a reduction in customer lead times from months to weeks, with full factory autonomy planned for 2027.