07-09-2018

Xometry Acquires MakeTime

by Seth Levine

We’re pleased to announce that Foundry Group portfolio company MakeTime has been acquired by Xometry. This acquisition brings together the country’s two top manufacturing network businesses and creates the largest on-demand manufacturing platform in the United States. As part of the transaction, Foundry Group Next led a $25 million round of financing for the newly combined company. Almaz Capital, BMW’s iVentures, GE Ventures, Highland Capital Partners and Maryland Venture Fund also participated in the round.

We first invested in MakeTime in 2016, having followed the company and the on-demand manufacturing market closely for over a year prior to that. Driven by fragmentation in the $80 billion market for on-demand manufacturing, the thesis behind MakeTime was to bring order to the often opaque and manual process of finding parts manufacturers. Much of this market is driven by small and medium sized manufacturers – there are approximately 190,000 manufacturers with fewer than 20 employees in the US alone – and there exists no common directory, no view to individual machine shop capacity, or understanding of any given machine shop’s speciality or performance history. The majority of projects in this market are sourced through slow RFP processes which rely on prior vendor relationships and lack even the most basic automation.

In contrast, the combined Xometry/MakeTime business will have access to 2,300 partner manufacturers ranging in capabilities from 3D printing prototypes to CNC machining to injection molding. This partner network, combined with Xometry’s real-time pricing capabilities, allows Xometry customers to confirm parts orders instantly on the Xometry platform. We are excited to have the opportunity to combine the two businesses and create a clear leader in on-demand manufacturing. Both businesses shared a common vision around this space and bring complementary skills and capabilities that they will work to combine into a single platform in the coming months.

The combined business will be run by Randy Altschuler, Xometry’s CEO, and headquartered in Maryland. MakeTime’s office in Lexington, KY will continue to operate and the business anticipates expanding in both locations. Drura Parrish, MakeTime’s founder and CEO will become Xometry’s Executive Vice President for Platform.

We’re excited to continue to work with Drura on the new business and welcome Randy and the entire Xometry team to the Foundry Group family.