Slant 3D announced its first investment funding round.
The Boise-based company is a growing 3D print service, able to receive requests and produce polymer parts on demand. Currently, they have at least two print farms, located in Boise and Texas.
Their most recent — and most popular — product is called “Teleport”. It’s a software integration between their 3D print factories and customer parts systems or even online stores. The idea is to trigger part production right from the source.
Teleport enables anyone marketing physical products to have them 3D printed for customers at the time of order, and then have them shipped by Slant 3D. This capability could greatly simplify operations for many online sellers, and evidently has proven quite popular. Slant 3D explains:
“The primary product from Slant 3D is its free Teleport Software. Teleport allows any user to connect their e-commerce store directly into a Slant 3D Factory. So when the store gets an order, Slant 3D will print out the object and ship it directly to the end user. Nothing exists until it is ordered. And there are no costs until an item is sold.”
The popularity of Teleport has attracted investment, with Slant 3D now receiving US$1.5M from unidentified investors.
Slant 3D CEO Gabe Bentz is quite excited about this development, telling us:
“We’re building a warehouse where the shelves make the product. If you have that, you don’t need molds, you don’t need shipping, you don’t need warehousing. You just need to be able to design products people want. A kid in Africa can make a product that a woman in New York might use. Sell one or 1 million. And never have to have anything more than a laptop to do it.”
What will Slant 3D do with this extra cash? They explained:
“One of the additional factories is expected to be placed in Louisville, Kentucky, in order to reduce shipping times for Teleport Print on Demand Users.”
This is a strategic move. Louisville is well-known as an air shipping hub, where it would be far easier to move completed parts to customers. Part of Slant 3D’s business proposition is fast access to printed parts, and a Louisville farm would address that need.
Via Slant 3D
