Jorge Cavazos-Cuellar is Co-Founder and COO at Kairox Systems, a Y Combinator-backed startup building autonomous drones that both fly and swim.

Jorge earned a BS in Aerospace Engineering from MIT and designed self-regulating membrane testing systems at the MIT Bioinstrumentation Lab. He then served as lead ADCS engineer at Oligo Space, handling control law design, magnetorquer fabrication, and hardware-in-the-loop qualification.

Jorge met his co-founders Joel and Alex at MIT, and the trio set out to build hardware that solves real operational gaps after speaking with warfighters and drone researchers.

Kairox Systems builds Tempest, a low-cost, fixed-wing drone that flies, dives beneath the surface, swims, and flies back out. The company joined Y Combinator's Fall 2026 batch and is based in San Francisco.

Tempest aims to replace missions that today require two separate vehicles, combining aerial speed with underwater stealth for maritime inspection and defense uses. Kairox has been spotlighted among Bluetech startups in the MassRobotics community, and Tempest is currently in rigorous testing.