Need funding, look at these Solo GPs

Hi all!

Come and meet the NPA team at the

FORGE Spring Startup Showcase on Apr. 13 at 3DEXPERIENCE Lab at Dassault Systèmes in Waltham, MA.

FORGE will give out $10K in funding! Get your free ticket here: https://buff.ly/3lIU5TP

The State of Manufacturing

The Manufacturing PMI Index has now slipped to its lowest point since May 2020, and none of the sub-indexes were in growth territory.

Most of the indexes are contracting, with significant reductions in New Orders & Backlogs. On the bright sight, Inventories are growing and easing some of the supply challenges. However, this could potentially quickly turn negative if Inventories grow to fast.

The world is entering a new age of clean technology manufacturing. IEA’s released the latest Energy Technology Perspectives 2023, and it shows that the global market for key mass-manufactured clean energy technologies will be worth around 650 billion USD a year by 2030 – more than three times today’s level.

At the same time, the current supply chains of clean energy technologies present risks in the form of high geographic concentrations of resource mining and processing.

Here is a great contribution from Steve Pappalardo at IMS on how to best manage potential Excess Material:

Companies always drive to the best material cost. In most cases, buying more material than they need to get that great price, assuming they will consume it over time. That may make sense if you have a stable design and schedule.

But what if you’re a startup company or have a new product, what if your design is not stable and you will be making changes? What if you have no idea what the delivery schedule will be? Buying excess material in those instances wastes your cash with no idea when you’ll turn it, if ever.

Talk to your contract manufacturer and ensure they have a process to mitigate excess material. If they don’t, find one that does. You never want to try and “pay your bills with parts”!

Boston-area startups raised around $904.5 million in March. A nice increase from the $406.7 million raised in February. Hardware companies raised $50 million combined.

Boston Dynamics is well known for its incredible mobile robots Atlas & Spot. Their commercial robot Stretch is a purpose-built warehouse robot that shares their DNA. Here is a great write-up from TechCrunch about its application with DHL.

Need funding? Here is a great and detailed Airtable list of Solo GPs that might get you there. Very useful indeed.

If you need a more Specialized AI/ChapGPT, this might be your lucky day. This list is slightly overwhelming but also super interesting. There is an AI for that!

One of my favorite robotic startups, Tatum Robotics received $255,000 in SBIR funding from the National Science Foundation to further its communications tools for the Deaf and Blind community. Samantha Johnson, the founder, is such a brilliant force.

Massachusetts secured second place at the 2022 City Clean Energy Scorecard, released by the nonprofit American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), which ranks states on their policy and program efforts.

For 2023, we decided to switch up our process and provide Startup Spotlights each month on the best Startups with Hardware content in Boston.

If you know an exciting Startup that should get a Spotlight, please send a brief message to Hello@newpageassociates.com, and we will consider them.

Seurat Technologies is revolutionizing manufacturing with its innovative area printing technology. They are a leader in 3D metal printing, and their Wilmington, MA pilot factory is powered using 100% Clean Energy.

Their novel Area Printing technology uses a powerful laser containing over 2.3 million pixels to micro-weld thin metal powder layers to the area below it. This allows them to achieve excellent feature resolution and good print speed to break through some of the remaining barriers to adopting metal printing into mass production.

They have amassed 170 patents and patent applications and 41 trademarks and applications around their technology, and demand for their metal parts will likely require them to expand their facility in the future.

For more info, you can contact Seurat Technologies here.

In our March survey, we asked about your company's main plan for 2023. 22% agreed that the focus is on investing in recruiting and retention of talent and preparing for a potential recession.

With the emergence of ChatGPT in November 2022, the question of how AI may affect jobs and the routine inside companies is a hot topic.

A mammoth meatball has been created by a cultivated meat company. Vow, an Australian company, resurrected the flesh of long-extinct animals. NotForConsumption

(Source: The Guardian)

How ChatGPT-4 saved a dog’s life: the dog owner uploaded the lab results into ChatGPT to get an answer, and the AI came back with potential diagnoses, one of which was right. TechnologyIsAmazing (Source: NY Post)

Ever wonder how things are made? From chess pieces to baked ziti, this site will show you. SmartVideosForCuriousMinds (Source: TKSST)

Wanna feel small? Here’s a video of the scale of the universe. SoBigAndYetSoTiny (Source: Twitter)

Cheers,

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