Seattle-based start-up Glowforge has just come into a bit of money, $9 million in Series A funding to be exact. The round of funding was led by Foundry Group and True Ventures, with participation from former MakerBot CEOs Bre Pettis and Jenny Lawton, who has also joined the company as an advisor. The company is working on what it calls a “3D laser printer”, an affordable laser cutter with software meant to improve the ease-of-use and functionality of laser cutters.
Lasercutters are a mainstay of most Makerspaces, enabling community members to cut everything from plywood to circuit boards. With typical laser cutters starting at around $10,000, however, they’re not always easy to afford. However, Glowforge, which is made up of veterans of big Silicon Valley companies like Apple, is finalizing the designs of a laser cutter they believe they can sell for around $2,000. To do so, the company has substituted some of the more costly hardware, like the device’s motion plotter, for more advanced software. Installing cameras and sensors in the Glowforge and relying on cloud-based supercomputers, the company suggests that they’ve made a device that is both low-cost and easy to use.
The start-up’s CEO and co-founder, Dan Shapiro, says of the device, “For years, people have been talking about putting factories in the home. That’s silly. I want a factory in my home like I want a McDonalds in my kitchen. With Glowforge, we’re reinventing what it means to be ‘homemade’: custom, high-quality products produced quickly and inexpensively with your Glowforge. The first time I used a laser it was to prototype Robot Turtles, the best-selling board game in Kickstarter history. The technology was powerful, but atrociously difficult to use. The Glowforge is so simple that my kids dash over to make a toy and are playing with the results minutes later. Yet it’s powerful and precise enough that designers, engineers, and architects can create finished products that are higher-quality than what you’d find in a store.”
Brad Feld, of the Foundry Group, adds, “I’ve been investing in hardware companies for twenty years, from Harmonix to Makerbot to Fitbit. Now we’re at a crossroads between the growth of Etsy, the maker movement, and the 3D printing industry. It’s clear the world is ready for a device that can create beautiful, homemade products at the push of a button. I’m excited to back a team of executives with a history of founding six companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars across both hardware and software.”
The addition of Lawton to their advisory board brings the experience of MakerBot to the Glowforge team. Shapiro says of their new advisor, “One of the smartest startup executives I’ve met along the way is Jennifer Lawton, formerly CEO of Makerbot. She has a ton of experience at scaling companies from small to earth-moving, and has been in the trenches of building a business that delivers desktop fabrication tools. Some folks are great listeners, some are great storytellers; Jenny combines the best of both. That’s why I consider myself extremely lucky that Jenny has agreed to serve as an advisor to Glowforge. Having her wisdom on hand is going to make my job that much easier.”
The Glowforge will be available for purchase later this year for less than $2,500. Based on the amount of Kickstarter experience on the Glowforge team, I wouldn’t be surprised if it hits the crowfunding site before it’s available for direct purchase.
