Duro, the pioneer in enterprise SaaS for managing hardware product data, today announced it has raised an oversubscribed $4 million in seed financing. The round was led by Bonfire Ventures with participation from Riot Ventures. Pre-seed investors include Atypical Ventures as well as several individual strategic investors. The new funding will be used to expand sales and marketing teams and to further develop DuroÂ’s product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions.
The State of Hardware Engineering
As manufactured products become exponentially more complex and design and iteration cycles are shortened, hardware and embedded systems teams need a resource to manage product lifecycles through increasingly fragile supply chains and global manufacturing processes. Current PLM tools are not built for the modern age and fail to provide one cardinal asset: a single source of truth.
Antiquated software technology and methods traditionally used by hardware teams have been holding the hardware industry back from being as agile as software.
A multitude of teams, tools, and processes are involved to develop a market-ready product, but they often work in separate silos that must be manually connected. To date, hardware engineers either create their own data workflows from scratch or adapt to an existing infrastructure to keep track of BOM, CAD files, and supply chain data. These workflows can range from a complex and costly network of legacy PLM software and systems to simple but unreliable use of emails and spreadsheets. Whatever the approach, the outdated industry practice of manual data management eats up a hardware companyÂ’s limited resources.
To automate data management and finally modernize the manufacturing industry, Duro was born. Cofounders Michael Corr and Kellan OÂ’Connor developed an intuitive cloud platform to centralize all product data and remove the friction of connecting disparate teams and tools to enable total transparency. Everyone — from engineers to suppliers — has access to only the most accurate and up-to-date information at all times.
“We’re incredibly excited to partner with Duro, which is bringing a fresh solution to a big market dominated by old companies. When a startup like Duro lowers the barrier to entry for a whole new set of users, it positions them to get the lion’s share of that new addressable market,” said Jim Andelman, co-founder and Managing Director at Bonfire Ventures. “Customer affinity for Duro’s platform is off the charts: it’s clear to us that this is the PLM solution of choice for engineering-driven businesses.“
The New Generation of Makers
With Duro, engineers now can redirect the time and resources spent on data management towards what they love best: engineering great products. Through the agilization of the hardware manufacturing industry, the costs and risks of hardware development will drop drastically such that a new wave of world-changing hardware companies will rise and the industry will see even greater innovation.
”Given our extensive experience investing in full-stack businesses, we know that issues surrounding data continuity are synonymous with hardware manufacturing and weigh heavily on the industry,” said Will Coffield, co-founder and General Partner at Riot Ventures. “We love Duro’s approach to modernizing hardware design/development, using automation to replace manual processes and connect teams to information for intelligent and efficient collaboration.”
With over 35 years of combined experience in designing and manufacturing everything from IoT, drones, to SpaceX rockets, CEO Michael Corr and CCO Kellan OÂ’Connor launched Duro to make engineersÂ’ lives easier. Duro simplifies data management for creative, revolutionary customers such as Sphero and Framework, two companies recognized in TimeÂ’s Best Inventions of 2021. On top of their platform, the company is also building a strategic partner ecosystem that enables engineers to connect Duro to their favorite product development tools to create their ultimate toolset so they can work the way they want to.
“We thank all of our new and previous investors who have always provided amazing guidance and supported our vision. With this funding, we’ll be able to continue empowering hardware teams to push the boundaries of product design and development,” said Michael Corr, CEO of Duro. “At Duro, we dream of a future where an engineer goes from CAD to production without ever leaving their laptop.”
To learn more, visit: https://www.durolabs.co.
About Duro
Duro is an enterprise cloud data management platform that is empowering the next generation of hardware teams in the era of agile development. The company offers leading PLM solutions that leverage software automation to centralize fragmented product data and create a single source of truth across all teams. Duro unleashes complete data transparency to increase workforce productivity and reduce the risks inherent in engineering and manufacturing hardware products. Headquartered in Los Angeles, the award-winning company was founded by Michael Corr and Kellan OÂ’Connor. Duro is helping companies like Sphero, Arevo, and Rapid Robotics innovate better and faster. Learn more at durolabs.co.