Houston-based electronics manufacturing biz raises $15M in new funding
money moves
A Houston company that has optimized electronics manufacturing by setting up a digital platform connecting a network of factories across North America has raised its latest round of funding.
MacroFab closed a $15 million series B round led by New Jersey-based Edison Partners. ATX Venture Partners also participated, along with strategic investor Altium Limited, a leader in the electronics design software space.
The new funds will go toward keeping up with MacroFab's growth, specifically in expanding in North America and an increased investment in research and development, sales and marketing, and the opening of a new distribution center for international logistics this summer, according to a news release.
"MacroFab customers found themselves in a perfect storm last year, and went from being curious about cloud-enabled manufacturing to going all-in," says Misha Govshteyn, MacroFab CEO, in the release. "The turbulence started with the trade war and tariffs, and only accelerated with massive delays in delivering products from overseas and the ongoing microchip availability crisis.”
Govshteyn says the pandemic has affected traditional manufacturing processes. While some companies utilized manufacturing in China, international travel meant for impossible in-person troubleshooting. Digitization became increasingly optimal.
"Supply chain leaders are turning to MacroFab and our digital platform as a way to move faster," Govshteyn continues in the release. "If you're not as big as Apple, but want to build across multiple factories in parallel, our platform is the only way to do so without incurring immense costs".
MacroFab was founded in 2013 and has raised both seed and series A financing led by ATX Venture Partners and Techstars. Govshteyn and his co-founders — Chris Church, who serves as chief product officer, Chris Granberry, the company's COO — previously co-founded Alert Logic.
The trio of entrepreneurs reconvened to address an opportunity in a market that was home to an antiquated process within manufacturing. Lately, MacroFab's clients are looking to reduce waste.
"A typical electronics factory is only 60 percent utilized, according to New Venture Research, which is startlingly inefficient," Church says in the release. "A number of our customers focused on Environmental and Social Governance (ESG) issues see our ability to tap into this capacity as a step towards ecologically sustainable production."
The deal includes a new board member for MacroFab. Daniel Herscovici, partner at Edison Partners, will join MacroFab's board of directors
The company has "a proven track record of building successful SaaS and cloud infrastructure businesses together, and are now bringing supply chain innovation to the market at a time when global electronics manufacturing is facing disruption," Herscovici says in the release. "MacroFab is at the center of driving the digital transformation needed to unlock factory capacity, manufacturing agility and efficiency, and even new economic and labor markets for electronics makers across North America."
MacroFab's raise also included a new strategic partnership with Altium, one of the largest players in the electronics design space, per the release.
"Altium shares MacroFab's vision for digital transformation of manufacturing in the electronics industry," says Ted Pawela, chief ecosystem officer at Altium. "Our investment in, and partnership with MacroFab is a huge step forward in connecting design, supply chain, and manufacturing to accelerate innovation."
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