BotFactory, a New York maker of Squink Multilayer PCB 3D printers, announced on October 10 that they have completed a $ 1 million seed round of financing. It is understood that this round of investment comes from New York Angels. This round of funding is mainly used to expand sales, marketing and product development, and New York Angels director Larry Richenstein will join BotFactory's board.
In 2014, BotFactory made headlines for the first time. At the time, they launched a crowdfunding campaign for their promising Squink PCB 3D printer on the well-known crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. Squink, which sells for $ 3,000, is a Wi-Fi-connected desktop PCB 3D printer that handles all those cumbersome steps in customizing the PCB manufacturing process. After the circuit design is uploaded, Squink first 3D prints a special conductive ink on the base material, and then it fixes the component pins with conductive glue dots. In the final step, Squink can even pick and place components to build a complete model.
As a result, Squink is a truly integrated desktop PCB manufacturing plant, and it has successfully raised over $ 100,000 on Kickstarter. A year ago, the first Squink was shipped to customers. In October 2015, BotFactory upgraded Squink for the first time to provide customers with Advanced Ink. With this ink, users can print marks on Kapton, FR4 and new materials such as ceramics and metals. Six months later, BotFactory released "Insulating Ink", which enables users to create multilayer PCBs on the desktop.
Nowadays, as electronic components are becoming more and more complex, it is almost impossible for any developer to ignore multilayer PCBs. BotFactory is addressing user needs and paving the way for a very wide range of new DIY devices, including wearables and more complex robots.
"The electronics industry is growing fast, driven by new things like the Internet of Things. We are just beginning to touch the surface of a huge problem in this industry." CEO Nicolas Vansnick said, "Everyone is trying to reduce one-off factory manufacturing The cost of things, but the factories themselves are often designed for mass production. Our solution is to miniaturize the factory and bring it where it is needed: the engineer's desk. "