Brothers from Uzbekistan to raise $500,000 in Y Combinator accelerator

The brothers founded Defex Robotics in March 2026. Prior to this, Khusan conducted research in laboratories in Uzbekistan, Turkey, and China, and also studied at universities in these countries and the USA. However, he did not graduate from any university. His brother Khasan studied programming and artificial intelligence. Both decided to focus entirely on developing the startup.

According to Khusan, in many manufacturing facilities, connecting cables to electronic boards is still done manually. Errors during connector installation can lead to equipment malfunctions. Defex Robotics is developing a system in which a camera determines the position of the connector, a robotic arm connects the cable with force control, and AI checks the quality of the connection.

The entrepreneur claims that an operation taking an employee 3–4 hours will be completed in less than 20 minutes using the robot. The technology is still in development: cable installation is being tested in a virtual environment, while the connection verification system has already been launched on special equipment.

According to Khusan, 27 companies have shown interest in the product, collectively paying $31,000 to reserve the robots. Among them are 24 manufacturers from Houston, one company from San Francisco, and two from Uzbekistan.

In early November, the brothers received an invitation to the Y Combinator winter 2027 batch. The three-month program will take place in San Francisco. Under the accelerator's standard terms, startups receive $500,000: $125,000 in exchange for 7% of the company and another $375,000 under a SAFE agreement, which will later convert into equity. Khusan stated that the agreement with the accelerator has already been signed, and the transfer of funds is expected in the coming weeks.