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Fractory raises $9M to rethink the manufacturing supply chain for metalworks
The manufacturing industry took a hard hit from the Covid-19 pandemic, but there are signs of how it is slowly starting to come back into shape — helped in part by new efforts to make factories more responsive to the fluctuations in demand that come with the ups and downs of grappling with the shifting economy, virus outbreaks and more. Today, a businesses that is positioning itself as part of that new guard of flexible custom manufacturing — a startup called Fractory — is announcing a Series A of $9 million (€7.7 million) that underscores the trend.
The funding is being led by OTB Ventures, a leading European investor focussed on early growth, post-product, high-tech start-ups, with existing investors Trind Ventures, Superhero Capital, United Angels VC, Startup Wise Guys and Verve Ventures also participating.
Founded in Estonia but now based in Manchester, England — historically a strong hub for manufacturing in the country, and close to Fractory’s customers — Fractory has built a platform to make it easier for those that need to get custom metalwork to upload and order it, and for factories to pick up new customers and jobs based on those requests.
Fractory’s Series A will be used to continue expanding its technology, and to bring more partners into its ecosystem.
To date, the company has worked with more than 24,000 customers and hundreds of manufacturers and metal companies, and altogether it has helped crank out more than 2.5 million metal parts.
To be clear, Fractory isn’t a manufacturer itself, nor does it have no plans to get involved in that part of the process. Rather, it is in the business of enterprise software, with a marketplace for those who are able to carry out manufacturing jobs — currently in the area of metalwork — to engage with companies that need metal parts made for them, using intelligent tools to identify what needs to be made and connecting that potential job to the specialist manufacturers that can make it.
The challenge that Fractory is solving is not unlike that faced in a lot of industries that have variable supply and demand, a lot of fragmentation, and generally an inefficient way of sourcing work.
As Martin Vares, Fractory’s founder and MD, described it to me, companies who need metal parts made might have one factory they regularly work with. But if there are any circumstances that might mean that this factory cannot carry out a job, then the customer needs to shop around and find others to do it instead. This can be a time-consuming, and costly process.
“It’s a very fragmented market and there are so many ways to manufacture products, and the connection between those two is complicated,” he said. “In the past, if you wanted to outsource something, it would mean multiple emails to multiple places. But you can’t go to 30 different suppliers like that individually. We make it into a one-stop shop.”
On the other side, factories are always looking for better ways to fill out their roster of work so there is little downtime — factories want to avoid having people paid to work with no work coming in, or machinery that is not being used.
“The average uptime capacity is 50%,” Vares said of the metalwork plants on Fractory’s platform (and in the industry in general). “We have a lot more machines out there than are being used. We really want to solve the issue of leftover capacity and make the market function better and reduce waste. We want to make their factories more efficient and thus sustainable.”
The Fractory approach involves customers — today those customers are typically in construction, or other heavy machinery industries like ship building, aerospace and automotive — uploading CAD files specifying what they need made. These then get sent out to a network of manufacturers to bid for and take on as jobs — a little like a freelance marketplace, but for manufacturing jobs. About 30% of those jobs are then fully automated, while the other 70% might include some involvement from Fractory to help advise customers on their approach, including in the quoting of the work, manufacturing, delivery and more. The plan is to build in more technology to improve the proportion that can be automated, Vares said. That would include further investment in RPA, but also computer vision to better understand what a customer is looking to do, and how best to execute it.
Currently Fractory’s platform can help fill orders for laser cutting and metal folding services, including work like CNC machining, and it’s next looking at industrial additive 3D printing. It will also be looking at other materials like stonework and chip making.
Manufacturing is one of those industries that has in some ways been very slow to modernize, which in a way is not a huge surprise: equipment is heavy and expensive, and generally the maxim of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” applies in this world. That’s why companies that are building more intelligent software to at least run that legacy equipment more efficiently are finding some footing. Xometry, a bigger company out of the U.S. that also has built a bridge between manufacturers and companies that need things custom made, went public earlier this year and now has a market cap of over $3 billion. Others in the same space include Hubs (which is now part of Protolabs) and Qimtek, among others.
One selling point that Fractory has been pushing is that it generally aims to keep manufacturing local to the customer to reduce the logistics component of the work to reduce carbon emissions, although as the company grows it will be interesting to see how and if it adheres to that commitment.
In the meantime, investors believe that Fractory’s approach and fast growth are strong signs that it’s here to stay and make an impact in the industry.
“Fractory has created an enterprise software platform like no other in the manufacturing setting. Its rapid customer adoption is clear demonstrable feedback of the value that Fractory brings to manufacturing supply chains with technology to automate and digitise an ecosystem poised for innovation,” said Marcin Hejka in a statement. “We have invested in a great product and a talented group of software engineers, committed to developing a product and continuing with their formidable track record of rapid international growth
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White-label SaaS shipping startup Outvio closes $3M round led by Change Ventures
Outvio, an Estonian startup that provides a white-label SaaS fulfillment solution for medium-sized and large online retailers in Spain and Estonia, has closed a $3 million early-stage financing round led by Change Ventures.
Also participating were TMT Investments (London), Fresco Capital (San Francisco) and Lemonade Stand (Tallinn). Several angels also joined the round, including James Berdigans (Printify) and Kristjan Vilosius (Katana MRP). This is the startup’s first institutional round of funding after bootstrapping since 2018.
Online retailers usually have to use a number of different tools or hire expensive developers to create in-house shipping solutions. Outvio offers online stores of any size a post-purchase shipping setup, which seeks to replicate an Amazon-style experience where customers can also return packages. Among others, it competes with ShippyPro, which runs out of Italy and has raised $5 million to date.
“We can give any online store all the tools needed to offer a superior post-sale customer experience,” Juan Borras, co-founder and CEO of Outvio, said. “We can integrate at different points in their fulfillment process, and for large merchants, save them hundreds of thousands in development costs alone.”
“What happens after the purchase is more important than most shops realize,” he added. “More than 88% of consumers say it is very important for them that retailers proactively communicate every fulfillment and delivery stage. Not doing so, especially if there are problems, often results in losing that client. Our mission is to help online stores streamline everything that happens after the sale, fueling repeat business and brand-loyal customers with the help of a fantastic post-purchase experience.”
“While online retailing has a long way to go, the expectations of consumers are increasing when it comes to delivery time and standards,” Rait Ojasaar, investment partner at lead investor Change Ventures, said. “The same can be said about the online shop operators who increasingly look for more advanced solutions with consumer-like user experience. The Outvio team has understood exactly what the gap in the market is and has done a tremendous job of finding product-market fit with their modern fulfillment SaaS platform.”
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After lockdowns boost gaming marketplace Eneba, it raises $8M from Practica and InReach
Eneba, a marketplace for gamers that sells games and other products, has raised an $8 million round of funding from Practica Capital and InReach Ventures. The funding is described as a “combination” of a seed and Series A round. Also participating in the funding for the Lithuanian startup was FJ Labs and a group of angel investors, including Mantas Mikuckas, COO of Vinted. The investment highlights once again the strength of the Baltics region as a tech ecosystem, after Lithuania produced its first Unicorn in the shape of Vinted, and Estonia added Pipedrive to its unicorns list.
With the increased shift to digital entertainment during the pandemic, the startup has managed to garner much more U.S. traffic. Launched in 2018 by two Lithuanian school friends, Vytis Uogintas and Žygimantas Mikšta, Eneba says it has attracted 26 million unique users because of its security features, “one-click to buy” gamer experience and fingerprinting technology. The site also optimizes its localized gaming experiences to show locally trending gaming products. Eneba’s platform is designed to reduce risky transactions, simplify the refunding process and deal with fraud threats.
Co-founder and CMO Žygimantas Mikšta said: “We had a lot of new users coming to Eneba during these uncertain times. While it was extremely satisfying to see our numbers increasing tenfold, there was a challenge to meet the demand. To better reflect our user numbers, we had to quickly expand our team to 130.”
Security has risen up the agenda in online gaming as virtual goods and services connected to games can be highly susceptible to fraud or theft. Although it competes with outlets like Amazon, eBay and retailers like GameStop and Game.co.uk, Eneba thinks it has found a better, tailored online pre/post-buying experience for gamers, while addressing the risk problems for sellers and buyers in the gaming world.
Donatas Keras, partner at Practica Capital said: “We are thrilled to be backing Vytis and Žygimantas. We’ve been impressed by their ability to execute at such speed as their company quickly scales, and to drive an incredible product with a unique value proposition for gamers.”
Co-founder of InReach Ventures, Roberto Bonanzinga, said: “In Europe we have a tradition of building successful companies in the gaming space. We are very excited to have discovered Eneba thanks to our AI platform when the company was unknown and under the radar. We have been extremely impressed by what the founders have been able to build in such a short amount of time.”
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Warren gets $1.4 million to help local cloud infrastructure providers compete against Amazon and other giants
Started as a side project by its founders, Warren is now helping regional cloud infrastructure service providers compete against Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Google and other tech giants. Based in Tallinn, Estonia, Warren’s self-service distributed cloud platform is gaining traction in Southeast Asia, one of the world’s fastest-growing cloud service markets, and Europe. It recently closed a $1.4 million seed round led by Passion Capital, with plans to expand in South America, where it recently launched in Brazil.
Warren’s seed funding also included participation from Lemonade Stand and angel investors like former Nokia vice president Paul Melin and Marek Kiisa, co-founder of funds Superangel and NordicNinja.
The leading global cloud providers are aggressively expanding their international businesses by growing their marketing teams and data centers around the world (for example, over the past few months, Microsoft has launched a new data center region in Austria, expanded in Brazil and announced it will build a new region in Taiwan as it competes against Amazon Web Services).
But demand for customized service and control over data still prompt many companies, especially smaller ones, to pick local cloud infrastructure providers instead, Warren co-founder and chief executive officer Tarmo Tael told TechCrunch.
“Local providers pay more attention to personal sales and support, in local language, to all clients in general, and more importantly, take the time to focus on SME clients to provide flexibility and address their custom needs,” he said. “Whereas global providers give a personal touch maybe only to a few big clients in the enterprise sectors.” Many local providers also offer lower prices and give a large amount of bandwidth for free, attracting SMEs.
He added that “the data sovereignty aspect that plays an important role in choosing their cloud platform for many of the clients.”
In 2015, Tael and co-founder Henry Vaaderpass began working on the project that eventually became Warren while running a development agency for e-commerce sites. From the beginning, the two wanted to develop a product of their own and tested several ideas out, but weren’t really excited by any of them, he said. At the same time, the agency’s e-commerce clients were running into challenges as their businesses grew.
Tael and Vaaderpass’s clients tended to pick local cloud infrastructure providers because of lower costs and more personalized support. But setting up new e-commerce projects with scalable infrastructure was costly because many local cloud infrastructure providers use different platforms.
“So we started looking for tools to use for managing our e-commerce projects better and more efficiently,” Tael said. “As we didn’t find what we were looking for, we saw this as an opportunity to build our own.”
After creating their first prototype, Tael and Vaaderpass realized that it could be used by other development teams, and decided to seek angel funding from investors, like Kiisa, who have experience working with cloud data centers or infrastructure providers.
Southeast Asia, one of the world’s fastest-growing cloud markets, is an important part of Warren’s business. Warren will continue to expand in Southeast Asia, while focusing on other developing regions with large domestic markets, like South America (starting with Brazil). Tael said the startup is also in discussion with potential partners in other markets, including Russia, Turkey and China.
Warren’s current clients include Estonian cloud provider Pilw.io and Indonesian cloud provider IdCloudHost. Tael said working with Warren means its customers spend less time dealing with technical issues related to infrastructure software, so their teams, including developers, can instead focus on supporting clients and managing other services they sell.
The company’s goal is to give local cloud infrastructure providers the ability to meet increasing demand, and eventually expand internationally, with tools to handle more installations and end users. These include features like automated maintenance and DevOps processes that streamline feature testing and handling different platforms.
Ultimately, Warren wants to connect providers in a network that end users can access through a single API and user interface. It also envisions the network as a community where Warren’s clients can share resources and, eventually, have a marketplace for their apps and services.
In terms of competition, Tael said local cloud infrastructure providers often turn to OpenStack, Virtuozzo, Stratoscale or Mirantis. The advantage these companies currently have over Warren is a wider network, but Warren is busy building out its own. The company will be able to connect several locations to one provider by the first quarter of 2021. After that, Tael said, it will “gradually connect providers to each other, upgrading our user management and billing services to handle all that complexity.”
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UK eyeing switch to Apple-Google API for coronavirus contacts tracing — report
The UK may be rethinking its decision to shun Apple and Google’s API for its national coronavirus contacts tracing app, according to the Financial Times, which reported yesterday that the government is paying an IT supplier to investigate whether it can integrate the tech giants’ approach after all.
As we’ve reported before coronavirus contacts tracing apps are a new technology which aims to repurpose smartphones’ Bluetooth signals and device proximity to try to estimate individuals’ infection risk.
The UK’s forthcoming app, called NHS COVID-19, has faced controversy because it’s being designed to use a centralized app architecture. This means developers are having to come up with workarounds for platform limitations on background access to Bluetooth as the Apple-Google cross-platform API only works with decentralized systems.
The choice of a centralized app architecture has also raised concerns about the impact of such an unprecedented state data grab on citizens’ privacy and human rights, and the risk of state ‘mission creep‘.
The UK also looks increasingly isolated in its choice in Europe after the German government opted to switch to a decentralized model, joining several other European countries that have said they will opt for a p2p approach, including Estonia, Ireland and Switzerland.
In the region, France remains the other major backer of a centralized system for its forthcoming coronavirus contacts tracing app, StopCovid.
Apple and Google, meanwhile, are collaborating on a so-called “exposure notification” API for national coronavirus contacts tracing apps. The API is slated to launch this month and is designed to remove restrictions that could interfere with how contact events are logged. However it’s only available for apps that don’t hold users’ personal data on central servers and prohibits location tracking, with the pair emphasizing that their system is designed to put privacy at the core.
Yesterday the FT reported that NHSX, the digital transformation branch of UK’s National Health Service, has awarded a £3.8M contract to the London office of Zuhlke Engineering, a Switzerland-based IT development firm which was involved in developing the initial version of the NHS COVID-19 app.
The contract includes a requirement to “investigate the complexity, performance and feasibility of implementing native Apple and Google contact tracing APIs within the existing proximity mobile application and platform”, per the newspaper’s report.
The work is also described as a “two week timeboxed technical spike”, which the FT suggests means it’s still at a preliminary phase — thought it also notes the contract includes a deadline of mid-May.
The contracted work was due to begin yesterday, per the report.
We’ve reached out to Zuhlke for comment. Its website describes the company as “a strong solutions partner” that’s focused on projects related to digital product delivery; cloud migration; scaling digital platforms; and the Internet of Things.
We also put questions arising from the FT report to NHSX.
At the time of writing the unit had not responded but yesterday a spokesperson told the newspaper: “We’ve been working with Apple and Google throughout the app’s development and it’s quite right and normal to continue to refine the app.”
The specific technical issue that appears to be causing concern relates to a workaround the developers have devised to try to circumvent platform limitations on Bluetooth that’s intended to wake up phones when the app itself is not being actively used in order that the proximity handshakes can still be carried out (and contacts events properly logged).
Thing is, if any of the devices fail to wake up and emit their identifiers so other nearby devices can log their presence there will be gaps in the data. Which, in plainer language, means the app might miss some close encounters between users — and therefore fail to notify some people of potential infection risk.
Recent reports have suggested the NHSX workaround has a particular problem with iPhones not being able to wake up other iPhones. And while Google’s Android OS is the more dominant platform in the UK (running on circa ~60% of smartphones, per Kantar) there will still be plenty of instances of two or more iPhone users passing near each other. So if their apps fail to wake up they won’t exchange data and those encounters won’t be logged.
On this, the FT quotes one person familiar with the NHS testing process who told it the app was able to work in the background in most cases, except when two iPhones were locked and left unused for around 30 minutes, and without any Android devices coming within 60m of the devices. The source also told it that bringing an Android device running the app close to the iPhone would “wake up” its Bluetooth connection.
Clearly, the government having to tell everyone in the UK to use an Android smartphone not an iPhone wouldn’t be a particularly palatable political message.
This is effectively a form of Android Herd Immunity: for the good of Britain, vaccinate your friends by giving them Androids!
— Michael Veale (@mikarv) May 5, 2020
One source with information about the NHSX testing process told us the unit has this week been asking IT suppliers for facilities or input on testing environments with “50-100 Bluetooth devices of mixed origin”, to help with challenges in testing the Bluetooth exchanges — which raises questions about how extensively this core functionality has been tested up to now. (Again, we’ve put questions to the NHSX about testing and will update this report with any response.)
Work on planning and developing the NHS COVID-19 app began March 7, according to evidence given to a UK parliamentary committee by the NHSX CEO’s, Matthew Gould, last month.
Gould has also previously suggested that the app could be “technically” ready to launch in as little as two or three weeks time from now. While a limited geographical trial of the app kicked off this week in the Isle of Wight. Prior to that, an alpha version of the app was tested at an RAF base involving staff carrying out simulations of people going shopping, per a BBC report last month.
Gould faced questions over the choice of centralized vs decentralized app architecture from the human rights committee earlier this week. He suggested then that the government is not “locked” to the choice — telling the committee: “We are constantly reassessing which approach is the right one — and if it becomes clear that the balance of advantage lies in a different approach then we will take that different approach. We’re not irredeemably wedded to one approach; if we need to shift then we will… It’s a very pragmatic decision about what approach is likely to get the results that we need to get.”
However it’s unclear how quickly such a major change to app architecture could be implemented, given centralized vs decentralized systems work in very different ways.
Additionally, such a big shift — more than two months into the NHSX’s project — seems, at such a late stage, as if it would be more closely characterized as a rebuild, rather than a little finessing (as suggested by the NHSX spokesperson’s remark to the FT vis-a-vis ‘refining’ the app).
In related news today, Reuters reports that Colombia has pulled its own coronavirus contacts tracing app after experiencing glitches and inaccuracies. The app had used alternative technology to power contacts logging via Bluetooth and wi-fi. A government official told the news agency it aims to rebuild the system and may now use the Apple-Google API.
Australia has also reported Bluetooth related problems with its national coronavirus app. And has also been reported to be moving towards adopting the Apple-Google API.
While, Singapore, the first country to launch a Bluetooth app for coronavirus contacts tracing, was also the first to run into technical hitches related to platform limits on background access — likely contributing to low download rates for the app (reportedly below 20%).
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In conversation with Icebreaker, Finland’s most active pre-seed VC
Icebreaker claims to be Finland’s most active pre-seed VC. The firm, which also invests in Estonia and Sweden, has backed 38 companies in the last three years out of its first fund, with a 65% success rate so far for companies that have been able to raise follow-on funding.
Two weeks ago, Icebreaker announced the launch of Fund II, with an initial close of €50 million. That’s more than twice the size of its first fund, which topped out at €20 million.
Its remit remains largely the same, however. The company typically invests between €150k and €800k in teams that have “deep domain expertise” and are building globally competitive tech companies according to Icebreaker co-founder and partner Riku Seppälä.
Noteworthy, this goes right to the top of the funnel and includes backing and helping to connect “pre-founders,” defined as individuals with over 5 years of work experience in their domain who are aiming to start or join a tech company. As part of this effort, Icebreaker operates an online and offline community to act as a catalyst for new companies to be founded.
Meanwhile, I’m told that Fund II was signed just as the coronavirus crisis began to take hold and includes the majority of LPs from Fund I in addition to new investors. Lead LPs are Tesi, KRR III, Varma Mutual Pension Insurance Company and Elo Mutual Pension Insurance Company, together with 41 other entities consisting of institutional investors, family offices and founders.
To find out more about Fund II and what’s it’s like to launch a new pre-seed fund at a time of such uncertainty, and to understand how Icebreaker thinks about startup life during and after lockdown, I put questions to Icebreaker co-founder and Partner Riku Seppälä.
TechCrunch: What does it feel like to close a new fund right at the start of a pandemic?
Riku Seppälä: Of course, we have been distracted by the mounting health crisis and how the world economy will recover, so the feelings are mixed.
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MeetFrank nets $1.1M for its passive job matching chatbot
MeetFrank, aka a ‘secret’ recruitment app that uses machine learning plus a chatbot wrapper to take the strain out of passive job hunting and talent-to-vacancy matching, has closed a €1 million (~$1.1M) seed funding round to fuel market expansion in Europe.
Hummingbird VC, Karma VC, and Change Ventures are the investors.
The Estonian startup was only founded last September but says it has ~125,000 active users in its first markets: Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania, plus its most recent market addition, Germany, an expansion this seed has financed.
Around 2,000 companies are using the app to try to attract talent. In Germany employers on board with MeetFrank include Daimler, Eon, Delivery Hero, SumUp, Blinkist, High Mobility and MyTaxi.
“The average company profile we have at the moment is a start-up/scale-up company that develops their product in-house,” says co-founder Kaarel Holm.
“At the moment we are mainly focused on technology-related companies — so positions you can find from average start-up or a scale-up,” he tells TechCrunch. “Around 50% of the position are engineering and other 50% is marketing, sales, customer support, legal, data science, product/project management etc.”
He names TransferWise, Taxify, Testlio, Smartly and High-Mobility as other early customers.
Here’s how MeetFrank works on the talent side: The person downloads the app and goes through a relatively quick onboarding chat with ‘Frank’ (the emoji-loving chatbot) where they are asked to specify their skills and experience — choosing from pre-set lists, rather than needing to type — plus to state their current job title and salary.
So while MeetFrank’s target is passive job seekers, these people do still need to actively download the app and input some data.
Hence the chatbot having a strong emoji + GIF game to convince talent that a little upfront effort will go a long way…
The bot also asks what would convince them to switch jobs — offering options to choose from such as a higher salary, more flexible or remote working, relocation, a startup culture and so on.
The anonymous aspect comes in because there’s no requirement for users to provide their real name or any other identifying personal information in order to get matches with potential positions.
Talent is therefore assessed on its merits, at least at this stage of the job hunt.
And while people are asked up front to specify their current salary, which you might think puts them at a potential disadvantage during any pay negotiations, Holm says the aim of MeetFrank’s platform is also to encourage greater openness from employers and steer away from traditional pay negotiation situations.
“We use salary as one datapoint for matching and we try to make sure that offers we make to the user are match their preferences. In lot of cases the salary is the main deal breaker and we would like to present the information as early as possible,” he explains. “Companies on the other side of the marketplace disclose their salary for the users as well — in that case we can avoid the negotiating disadvantage.”
“The policy of MeetFrank platform is that companies have to be extremely open about the position they are trying to fill — this also includes the salary information,” he adds.
Employers are not at all anonymous on the platform. On the contrary, they have to write detailed job advertisements — including levels of pay for advertised roles.
And a pay range will be disclosed to applicants that the app deems potentially suitable — i.e. after its matching process — by displaying a percentage of how much more they could earn above their current salary.
So employers need to be comfortable showing their hand to people who may just be curious what’s out there.
For employers, MeetFrank takes over the ad placement process — using its machine learning to algorithmically match potential candidates to positions. So its proposition is automatic pre-selection across “thousands” of potential job applicants.
And also the possibility of reaching talent which might otherwise not realize that company is hiring. Or think about working for a certain brand.
The app is mainly focused on a “passive talent pool” — aka “currently or recently employed talent that is open for offers”, as Holm puts it. So it’s certainly cherrypicking easier types of jobs to match and fill.
“Entry level jobs is bit out of reach for us at the moment but we will launch a beta project with couple of universities in the autumn this year,” he adds when we ask if the app is open to matching people who don’t currently have a job or are looking for a first job.
Holm says MeetFrank is currently showing 50% MRR growth. It’s already out of the pre-revenue phase — so is charging employers to advertise (the service remains free for the talent side).
The main monetization model is a daily subscription, with employers being charged on a pay-as-you-go basis. Holm says the price per day for employers is €9, and MeetFrank lets them cancel at any time — with no minimum time commitment required to sign up.
“We believe that the new-aged classifieds will only monetize on that kind of on-demand model and should only pay when they find us useful. This also lowers the barrier of entry to most of the start-ups and allows them to vet the market and get visibility with low budgets,” he adds.
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