Identify3D to Expand Market Growth in Securing of Intellectual Property, Manufacturing Integrity Along the Digital Thread
San Francisco, Calif. (March 7, 2017) – Identify3D, Inc., today announced it has completed its multi-million Series Seed investment round led by SoftTech VC. Among other investors participating in the round are the pre-seed lead investor Bee Partners, and international investors including Siemens Venture Capital GmbH, which is now a part of next47, the venture capital, advisor and catalyst into Siemens for external startups, La Famiglia, whose LP’s include large European Industrial families such as Krohne, Miele and Viessman, and DART Capital Partners, an Australian based venture capital group focused on Digital and Additive Manufacturing opportunities. Capital raised will help the company meet demand from its existing customer base in aerospace and defense and expand to meet the needs of other advanced manufacturing sectors including power generation, oil and gas, transportation and healthcare.
“Manufacturers have embraced digital manufacturing as an efficient way to bring innovation and efficiency in product manufacturing,” said Joe Inkenbrandt, Co-Founder and CEO of Identify3D. “But along the digital manufacturing thread, companies are vulnerable to issues of quality assurance and the potential theft of intellectual property. Securing the digital thread from prototype to finished product is critical, and our recent round of funding will enable us to further develop our solution by integrating with other CAD/PLM, OEMs and technology partners and meet the needs of our clients.”
The Identify3D platform empower manufacturers to take advantage of the benefits of digital manufacturing, such as subtractive CNC machines or additive industrial 3D printers. Identify3D protects product data, enforces business and manufacturing rules through licensing, and securely reports production data. The platform enables manufacturers to secure and trace the IP along the digital thread from designs to movement of physical parts to unlock profit and protect competitive advantage.
“Advanced Manufacturing has the potential to be a game changer for the $13 trillion manufacturing sector”, says Andy McLoughlin, Partner with the lead VC firm SoftTech. “However, its successful deployment will require protection of IP, repeatability of the manufacturing process and secured flow of data from design to production – key challenges that Identify3D addresses. We are very impressed with the team and traction achieved to date, and are very excited to back an industry-defining company.”
According to analyst firm Research and Markets the global digital manufacturing market will grow at a CAGR of 7.6% during the period 2016-2020. The majority of that growth stems from the adoption of digital manufacturing into the supply chain in aerospace, defense and medical devices.
“Identify3D provides design protection, quality assurance, and secure data distribution for digital manufacturing. They are experts in data distribution and Digital Rights Managements ensuring security and integrity of data along the complete manufacturing value chain – from design to the final product”, said Uwe Ruttkamp, Head of Business Segment Machine Tools Systems at Siemens. “We selected Identify 3D based on their outstanding approach and proven expertise in security and digital rights management, which will gain more and more importance in various industries.”
“We found them to be unique in the space and are very happy to partner with Identify3D,” added Ulrich Warmbier, Vice President of Product and Portfolio Management Machine Tool Systems. “Identify3D enables industrial designers to encrypt designs and couple them with business and production rules to securely manage digital manufacturing ecosystems.”
Said Stephan Thomas, co-founder and Head of Business Development, “By protecting and securing the design and IP for our customers, we are helping to advance our shared vision that all manufactured products in the future will have digital components. Integrity of both the design and the manufacturing process itself are fundamental requirements as we shift to a digital world, and we believe that Identify3D is well-positioned with our financial and strategic partners to continue to fuel that vision.”
SoftTech VC is one of the original micro VC firms, founded in 2004 and backing over 176 early-stage start-ups. Based in Palo Alto and San Francisco, the firm manages over $300M across five institutionally-backed funds and invests in Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, Southern California, Boulder and Canada. SoftTech VC is among the most active investors in early stage B2B, connect devices, marketplaces and consumer services startups, consistently investing in about 15 new opportunities a year. SoftTech seeks great entrepreneurs, building differentiated products in very large markets. More information available at www.softtechvc.com or follow us on twitter @softtechvc.
Siemens AG (Berlin and Munich) is a global technology powerhouse that has stood for engineering excellence, innovation, quality, reliability and internationality for more than 165 years. The company is active in more than 200 countries, focusing on the areas of electrification, automation and digitalization. One of the world’s largest producers of energy-efficient, resource-saving technologies, Siemens is a leading supplier of efficient power generation and power transmission solutions and a pioneer in infrastructure solutions as well as automation, drive and software solutions for industry. The company is also a leading provider of medical imaging equipment – such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging systems – and a leader in laboratory diagnostics as well as clinical IT. In fiscal 2016, which ended on September 30, 2016, Siemens generated revenue of €79.6 billion and net income of €5.6 billion. At the end of September 2016, the company had around 351,000 employees worldwide. Further information is available on the Internet at www.siemens.com.
Identify3D is a leader in software for digital manufacturing ensuring the security and integrity of intellectual property along the digital thread. Identify3D provides consistency and repeatability through the digital supply chain delivering quality assurance from design to finished product. Ultimately, Identify3D helps engineers make better decisions using in-depth analytics and reporting to enable innovation, optimization and scalability across disparate digital production platforms. For more information, visit
www.identify3D.com.
