Xometry Continues On-Demand Roll With Acquisition And New Funding

A number of companies over the past several years have proclaimed that they have the answer for resurrecting manufacturing in the U.S. Unfortunately, several of these efforts have turned out to be little more than chest beating without much real substance. Then, a company came along about four years ago that really had a concept and plan for making a difference for the future of manufacturing in the U.S. – Xometry.

Xometry, the largest on-demand manufacturing platform, announced earlier this month that it has acquired MakeTime, another leading on-demand manufacturing company. This acquisition brings together the country’s two top manufacturing network platforms. The combined company will operate under the Xometry brand name and have offices in Maryland and Kentucky.

The acquisition will allow Xometry to grow its national partner network of manufacturers from 1,100 to more than 2,300 while gaining MakeTime’s enterprise product expertise and features including their Autodesk Fusion add-in and Shop Advantage program. Drura Parrish, MakeTime Founder and CEO, will join Xometry as Executive Vice President for Platform.

Foundry Group, one of MakeTime’s investors, will lead a new $25 million round of funding for the newly combined company. Almaz Capital, BMW i Ventures, GE Ventures, Highland Capital Partners and Maryland Venture Fund will also contribute to the round.  Xometry has now raised a total of $63 million to date.

Xometry and MakeTime: The Future of Manufacturing

“We’re thrilled to combine Xometry’s online manufacturing platform with MakeTime’s proven success in building a distributed network of over 1,000 manufacturers,” said Randy Altschuler, co-founder and CEO of Xometry. “This acquisition will provide our customers with access to massive capacity through the industry’s largest distributed manufacturing network as well enhanced product features.”

“We’re excited at the prospect of joining forces with Xometry,” said Drura Parrish, CEO and Founder of MakeTime. “We’ve both been building the future of manufacturing, and now we will be able to offer small- and medium-sized manufacturers access to more jobs, more opportunities for growth and advanced products to power their businesses.”

Xometry has continued its rapid market expansion, recently eclipsing 10,000 customers across multiple vertical industries, including aerospace, automotive, consumer, and medical devices. In the first five months of 2018, Xometry more than doubled both its revenues and bookings versus the same period in 2017. The company also recently launched a new version of the Xometry Instant Quoting Engine, that provides virtually instant quotes on uploaded CAD files.

Foundry Group’s Seth Levine will join Xometry’s Board of Directors. “We are thrilled to help Xometry capture greater share of the $80+ billion on-demand manufacturing marketplace,” said Levine.  “By combining both MakeTime’s complementary technology and partner network to Xometry’s, we can accelerate platform development and revenue growth to the benefit of both our customers and network partners.”

A Little Background On Xometry

From its inception, Xometry has been a company committed to bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. with its software platform for building a reliable and scalable manufacturing program. It employs a unique machine-learning approach that provides its customers with optimal manufacturing capabilities at the best price based on parameters input by customers.

Xometry: Revitalizing American Manufacturing

Founded in 2014, Xometry hopes to transform American manufacturing through a proprietary software platform that provides on-demand manufacturing to a diverse customer base, ranging from startups to Fortune 100 companies. The platform provides an efficient way to source high-quality custom parts, with 24/7 access to instant pricing, expected lead time and manufacturability feedback that recommends best processes and practices. With well more than 100 manufacturing partners, the manufacturing capabilities include CNC machining, 3D printing, sheet metal forming and fabrication, and urethane casting with over 200 materials. Xometry’s customers include General Electric, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, NASA, and the United States Army.

Xometry’s technology platform enables it to leverage the expertise and capacity of more than 200,000 manufacturers across the United States, most of whom have less than 20 employees. Xometry’s partners are spending less time bidding for new business and more time producing parts.

Xometry employs strict quality control protocols to ensure it’s only offering up the best vendors. When a manufacturer initially signs up to join the network, Xometry screens the company by giving it only one job to complete. Instead of shipping the product directly to the customer, it’s first sent to Xometry; where their team assesses the quality of the product and whether it meets standards established by the customer and Xometry. Customers are also encouraged to rate their vendors based on their performance, and any manufacturers flagged for producing poor-quality products will receive additional scrutiny from Xometry.

Video Interview With Xometry at SOLIDWORKS World 2017

For some time, Xometry has had an especially close relationship with DS SOLIDWORKS. Xometry’s capabilities are available as a free SOLIDWORKS Instant Quoting add-in that can be accessed directly from the SOLIDWORKS interface.

Some of the features available in the SOLIDWORKS add-in include:

• Instantly price a design inside SOLIDWORKS
• Feedback on how to best make the parts
• Transparent and instant lead time estimation
• Add notes and drawings to further specify part features, finishes, and tolerances
• Order custom parts with one click
• Adjust parts based on manufacturability analysis to avoid potential fabrication issues
• Insight into pricing, lead-times, and manufacturability impacts for materials and processes
• Re-quote directly in SOLIDWORKS to explore design iterations
• Access manufacturability resources, guidelines, and knowledge base

Is Xometry the first company to explore the possibilities of on-demand manufacturing? Well, no, not exactly. However, we have been impressed with the company’s approach, growing partner network and customer base, and the relationships with customers and partners, as well as the substantial financial connections that continue to help it down a bright path.

Tags: Autodesk Fusion, Foundry Group, MakeTime, on-demand manufacturing, SolidWorks, Xometry, Xometry Instant Quoting Engine

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 26th, 2018 at 17:00. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.