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Hutch is clutch for these young founders
As founder and chief technology officer of PostProcess Technologies, Daniel Hutchinson spends his days on the problems of a later-stage startup.
When you’ve raised tens of millions in private capital and have more than 70 employees, it’s about building mature internal and external processes around your technology, he said. PostProcess develops and manufactures machines that “clean” parts after they’ve been through additive manufacturing, along with products and services around its machines.
Sometimes it’s nice to get back to your roots.
Hutchinson was a key adviser to the second-place team in this year’s Henry A. Panasci Jr. Technology Entrepreneurship Competition. Layer Slayers, led by UB biomedical engineering students Kamal Patel and Daunel Augustin, won $10,000 in prize money along with free legal and accounting services, and plans to pursue the company full time upon graduation this spring.
Layer Slayers is an education platform for 3D printing that aims to help companies take advantage of emerging trends in manufacturing.
In Hutchinson, they have a mentor who built a company in Buffalo from scratch, with the help of local investors and an executive team that includes CEO Jeff Mize. His daily focus remains on PostProcess, but by serving as a consultant to Layer Slayers’ young team, Hutchinson is catching some of that early-stage energy.
“PostProcess has grown and it keeps growing and that has brought new challenges,” Hutchinson said. “I think it’s beneficial to the stage where you’re just trying to get product out. They don’t look at them as challenges. All they see are opportunities.”
Hutchinson said Layer Slayers has a significant opportunity once Patel and Augustin graduate, as potential customers are already filling their pipeline. Expertise in 3D printing is a scarce resource, he said.
By helping build the industry, they are tangentially helping PostProcess, where leaders have been eagerly awaiting the worldwide maturation of additive manufacturing.
Hutchinson said despite its current trajectory, PostProcess was never a hit with local competitions such as 43North and Bright Buffalo Niagara. He said he enjoys bringing his own tale of fortitude to a new generation of startup founders.
“I’m the guy that didn’t win, but that shouldn’t stop you from achieving,” he said. “Don’t give up.”
Catching a bounce
Bounce Imaging cut a pretty quiet profile for a few years in the Buffalo startup community but the former 43North winner has been making waves in 2021.
The company was recognized recently at the 2021 Edison Best New Product Awards, a global competition, for a baseball-sized version of the original 360-degree camera that can be thrown into dangerous situations. Other Gold Medal winners included Lockheed Martin, SpaceX and GE.
Bounce Imaging was a $500,000 runner-up winner in the 43North competition in 2016, and while most of its team is now based near Boston, it still identifies Seneca One Tower as its headquarters. CEO Francisco Aguilar recently hired former 43North staffer Lauren Baynes as vice president of operations.
Baynes, in turn, hired an inside sales lead in late March out of Buffalo and has set to work filling several other positions here. Baynes is looking for several software developers and sales talent.
Bounce Imaging has raised more than $4 million in startup funding since it won 43North and has about 15 employees. The company services police and fire departments and is a Department of Defense contractor.
