The aerospace, defense, and automobile industries have long been reliant on obsolete processes for hardware design and manufacturing that do not fully encapsulate the potential of technology. First Resonance is the manufacturing intelligence platform that allows next-gen hardware companies to innovate, iterate, and get products to market faster with unprecedented real-time visibility into production status. Replacing spreadsheets, documents, and costly legacy manufacturing processes, First Resonance’s ion Factory Operating System leverages data science, API integration, and machine learning to provides flexibility and collaboration between knowledge teams in established manufacturing workflows. Founded by former SpaceX engineers, the platform was able to gain 12+ new customers in 2020 despite the pandemic to help advance the future of climate change, space travel, planetary exploration, and sustainable agriculture.
LA TechWatch caught up with CEO and Cofounder Karan Talati to learn more about First Resonance, the platform’s impact on manufacturing, progress made since launching out of stealth last fall, the company’s latest funding round, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
We are announcing a fresh funding round led by Blue Bear Capital. We raised $3.5M in seed funding this round which brings funds raised to date to $5.3M.
Blue Bear’s understanding of the industrial sector and keen focus on transformative technologies will shape the future of energy and industrials is what attracted First Resonance and Blue Bear as a venture pair.
Tell us about your product or service.
Our Factory Operating System, called ion, is used by companies taking on the world’s biggest hardware challenges such as climate change, transportation, and energy. This includes companies like Joby Aviation, Astra, Matternet, Cobalt Robotics, and more.
ion, takes a fresh perspective on manufacturing, eliminating many of the needless and outdated structures for managing workflows, replacing them with flexible, connected, and data-driven workflows that a new generation of manufacturers taking on big challenges like climate change, congestion, and sustainability need to be successful.
ion replaces spreadsheets, documents, and outdated, costly manufacturing and supply chain processes and tools with a platform that leverages machine learning, IoT, and advanced data analytics to support rapid engineering and manufacturing iteration.
What inspired the start of First Resonance?
Our team is made up of former engineers from SpaceX, NASA, Toyota, and other leading aerospace and automotive manufacturers. We’ve experienced the pains of manufacturing modern hardware products using traditional processes and systems, our team set out to build a modern factory operating system to help hardware companies design and deliver products with the speed and efficiency needed to move these massive industries forward.
How is it different?
Unlike in the 20th century, the factory isn’t just a mechanical, robotic, mundane workflow. Rather, it is evolving into an experiment factory where companies need to and do test new R&D
alongside their production workflows. This is critical for companies to stay ahead in the 21st century. Companies can no longer design something, test it, and then ship the product forever. Companies need to continually innovate and iterate. ion allows for that required level of iteration with its flexibility and also provides data to make sure that quality-critical products are being delivered without information slipping through the cracks. ion is really focused on empowering engineers and manufacturers to get data and access to develop the connected workflows they need to be successful in a connected environment.
ion is quick and easy to onboard so that our customers can get started immediately and with as little as one team member. Our competitors require big commitments and implementations upfront. Once started, ion has a great user experience that keeps the whole team productive and focused on building great hardware products. ion was created for a data-driven world, so data access, APIs, and analytics come out of the box.
What market are you targeting and how big is it?
Our customers are in aerospace, autonomous/electric manufacturing, robotics — any industry doing complex manufacturing and innovative startups solving some of the world’s biggest challenges such as climate change, space travel, planetary exploration, more sustainable agriculture, and more.
In terms of market size, ion addresses the needs of the manufacturing execution system market which is anticipated to grow to $14.9B by 2025. This figure is being rapidly accelerated given the massive shift in supply chains and manufacturing landscape brought on by shifting supply chains, constantly shifting geopolitical landscape, and accelerated by COVID-19.
What’s your business model?
We make it extremely easy for manufacturers to get onboarded. With our cloud infrastructure, a manufacturing company can start using ion in seconds – not wait months to go through process mapping, requirements gathering, and implementation plans. We also make pricing very simple to start, and we even publish it on our website. It’s a simple $100/user/month to get started.
How has COVID-19 impacted the business?
2020 saw huge growth for First Resonance. Manufacturers needed to stay connected to their factories, despite where they were working from. Hardware companies and venture capital funding kept going, with multiple companies in our space reaching massive valuations through venture capital and SPACs. We took the time at the beginning of COVID, as well, to develop some of our ideas that we thought would unlock product-market fit. We got a few things right and ran out of capacity internally to bring on more customers. So we raised more money at the end of 2020.
What was the funding process like?
Fundraising during COVID was a whole another challenge, but finding investors at Blue Bear Capital, which has a presence down here in LA made for a good match to power up everything that went right for us in 2020.
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Despite investors mentioning opened up opportunities for more investing outside of just Silicon Valley, the human connection matters. We found that not getting in the room with investors to really be able to share our passion and commitment to solving the problems we are solving was tough. We were fortunate to meet Vaughn and the team at Blue Bear through the fundraising process, and it turned out that they are down in LA. As things were looking clearer, we had the opportunity to go on a distanced walk, where we could be more open about our passion, commitment, and the opportunity. Virtual diligence was about the numbers. In-person was about the people, and we’re lucky to now be working with some great ones.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
First Resonance is going multiple levels down the stack and questioning the layers of bureaucracy and controls that traditional systems put in place. Blue Bear is committed to funding not just incremental improvements in the energy and industrials, but rather completely transforming it. Our ambitious first-principles dive into the stack to both reinvent it and accelerate new developments across energy, transportation, and more is what attracted Blue Bear to First Resonance. Blue Bear constantly meets disruptive hardware companies that are struggling to scale, and they saw a solution for that entire category in First Resonance.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
With our fresh round of funding, we are first and foremost focused on hiring a world-class team of engineers, manufacturers, and leaders to support multiple industries taking on tremendous challenges. We are hiring Customer Engineers who will be able to bring more manufacturers into the platform and accelerate getting game-changing hardware products into the world.
We’ve already started hiring. At the end of 2020, we were 6 people. We’re 10 now. By the end of the quarter, we will be 15. We will grow steadily from there. With the way business is going, we will likely grow our team to about 30 by the end of the year to support our growing customer base and our new ML/AI initiatives.
What advice can you offer companies in Los Angeles that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
Focus on your customers. Whether you have capital or not, it is all about working closely with your customers to identify real pain points in the world and making sure your product really solves them. In fact, I would argue that not having capital is an advantage here. Iterate quickly, be transparent, work methodically. Be resource-efficient and focus on the problem you are solving. No amount of capital is going to help you find product-market fit. This is your most opportune time.
Focus on your customers. Whether you have capital or not, it is all about working closely with your customers to identify real pain points in the world and making sure your product really solves them. In fact, I would argue that not having capital is an advantage here. Iterate quickly, be transparent, work methodically. Be resource-efficient and focus on the problem you are solving. No amount of capital is going to help you find product-market fit. This is your most opportune time.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
First Resonance is going multiple levels down the stack and questioning the layers of bureaucracy and controls that traditional systems put in place. Blue Bear is committed to funding not just incremental improvements in the energy and industrials, but rather completely transforming it. Our ambitious first-principles dive into the stack to both reinvent it and accelerate new developments across energy, transportation, and more is what attracted Blue Bear to First Resonance. Blue Bear constantly meets disruptive hardware companies that are struggling to scale, and they saw a solution for that entire category in First Resonance.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
This decade is all about bringing modern digital technology into the physical world. We’re already seeing this with initial strides being made in electric air and ground transportation, autonomous, robotics that replace mundane and dangerous work, and more. ion has a front-row seat in its work with some of the most cutting-edge hardware companies in the world. There are a number of example companies in the software world that empower other businesses and create entirely new product categories. We think about companies like Stripe, Twilio, and AWS — who operate under the hood, but their impact is huge. At First Resonance, we have a front-row seat to how the hardware companies of this century are moving the needle which positions us to become the underlying nervous system to this entire movement. The opportunity here is unimaginably massive. Given that we’re just getting started, we’re just taking it a day at a time.
What is your favorite restaurant in LA?
Have to give this one to Sage in Echo Park. Before Covid, I loved the ambiance. Bringing my carnivore friends there is always fun because, no matter your dietary preference, the food is delicious. I can’t wait to go back!
