From a fortuitous 2015 flight together down to one of Fast Radius’s production facilities at UPS Worldport in Louisville, KY, Fast Radius CEO, Lou Rassey, stood out to me as one of the most passionate, genuine, and domain-experienced Industry4.0 founders I’d ever interacted with. We kept the dialog going as he went on to open their HQ and advanced production facility in Chicago in 2018, and step-by-step, milestone-by-milestone Lou and team continued to execute flawlessly toward their massive vision that has now become a reality of building a software-orchestrated, global network of advanced manufacturing production capabilities for their customers. Alongside his world-class co-founders Pat McCusker, John Nanry, and Bill King, Lou’s leadership also continues to draw in world-class talent from the likes of Amazon, GE, Magic Leap, Rubicon Global, IDEO, McKinsey, and many other premier talent pools. As an investor, you just know it when you see it sometimes and Fast Radius was not a hard decision for Ironspring Ventures to get behind as we watched their rapid trajectory.

Whether looking at the company’s production method capabilities including additive, CNC, injection molding, or cast urethane, to segmenting across a range of both industrial grade and consumer products served on the platform, Fast Radius has proven the ability to provide a very diverse range of services to a very diverse customer base across market verticals including Satair (aerospace), Colgate Palmolive (CPG), Husqvarna (automotive), and even ramping up efforts to support critical PPE medical face masks and ventilators during the COVID pandemic. The possibilities are limitless for Fast Radius as they continue to educate and consult with customers on identifying the solid technical and economic business case applications now available to the market via advanced manuf. methods that those customers never imagined were even possible. And to take one step further into the future, Fast Radius’s strategically placed fulfillment facilities located all across the globe in major distribution hubs (Chicago, Singapore, Atlanta, Louisville; often coordinated with support from strategic investor, UPS) allow for a future where product manufacturers can now store digital part file information in the cloud to be printed or manufactured-on-demand via a “Virtual Warehouse” approach. Trains, planes, automobiles, and warehouses will always have major roles to play in the global supply chain, but the efficiencies, productivity, and sustainability gains to be accrued from more localized, custom and on-demand production methods will become a complete game-changer for the way our world’s GDP flows.