You’re probably as sick of hearing about the supply chain crisis as companies are of dealing with it. Lucky for all of us, digital manufacturing solutions like Fictiv are decreasing supply chain risks and headaches.
Fictiv’s digital manufacturing platform connects companies in need of physical components with over 250 of its manufacturing partners to quickly and efficiently create and ship parts worldwide. The San Francisco-based company announced on Thursday it raised funding to further expand and continue its mission.
“Fictiv was born out of this idea that if you could find a machine, which was idle or available, and you could ensure the quality of the part coming off that machine, you actually could start to produce products on demand. And if you did that, you could actually start building hardware and physical goods at the speed of software,” Fictiv CEO Dave Evans said in an interview with Built In.
Instead of manufacturing companies creating unnecessary queues of orders — which often delays production by weeks or months — Fictiv digitizes that workflow, giving companies a quote in minutes and manufactured parts in just five business days.
According to a company statement, Fictiv has delivered over 19 million mechanical parts to more than 3,000 product companies to date. Its customers range from giant, public corporations like RBC Bearings to small, early-stage startups. Fictiv said its customers experience over 40 percent accelerated component cycle times and over 20 percent greater engineering productivity. That’s no small feat in an industry plagued with slow-moving supply chain issues.
“Fictiv has been transformational for our business,” RBC Bearings General Manager Sean Williams said in a statement. “We started working with Fictiv in September [of] 2021 and since then have been impressed with their level of service and technical expertise, as well as the quality we receive. In our business, every second counts, and Fictiv has streamlined our workflows to reduce quoting time down from seven days to seconds or minutes, and our lead times down from weeks to days. This type of speed delivers real business value to us and the productivity benefits have been profound.”
Fictiv’s customers aren’t the only ones who experienced growth despite supply chain issues. Last year, Fictiv saw 100 percent year-over-year revenue growth and also grew its employee headcount by 81 percent.
The company also announced on Thursday it closed $100 million in Series E funding to expand its offerings to best serve its customers’ top challenges. The funding round was led by Activate Capital and includes new investors from Angeleno Group, Cross Creek, The Westly Group, as well as investors like Accel, Bill Gates, G2 Venture Partners and Standard Investments. The Series E brings Fictiv’s total capital raised to $192 million since its founding in 2013.
Fictiv hopes its new funding will help the company achieve its greater sustainability goals.
“At Fictiv we really believe that sustainability is not a big enough conversation in manufacturing, which is a very dirty industry,” Evans said. “With this new capital, we want to do better in environmental, social and governance (ESG). We want to give our customers a better, more sustainable options for manufacturing their components.”
He went on to say that Fictiv plans to help some of its manufacturing companies achieve green certifications as well as offer transparency to its customers by listing the carbon impact of manufacturing options right on the platform.
Fictiv is currently hiring for 50 open positions across departments. Evans said the company also plans to double its headcount in the near future.
