Fast Radius, a Chicago manufacturing startup that helps companies bring products to market, has raised a new round of funding from some well-known investors.
Fast Radius announced Tuesday that it has raised a $48 million Series B round led by UPS. Other backers include Drive Capital, Jump Capital, Skydeck, and Hyde Park Venture Partners. The startup has now raised more than $64 million since it launched in 2015.
The startup helps companies with additive and on-demand manufacturing, assisting with design, engineering, testing and validation---all the way through the supply chain. It helps customers create prototypes, as well as produce industrial parts at global scale.
Fast Radius has an existing relationship with UPS, and it operates a production center in UPS' WorldPort packaging facility in Louisville, KY.
Using a software platform and additive technologies like 3D printing, Fast Radius says it can help customers identify potential applications for their products, conduct engineering and economic evaluations, and accelerate new product development.
“Fast Radius’s mission is to make new things possible to advance the human condition,” Fast Radius CEO Lou Rassey said in a statement. “The new tools of digital design and additive manufacturing power that mission. Our focus is to help companies imagine new products and bring them into the world."
Fast Radius isn't the first Chicago startup that's caught the eye of UPS. In 2015, UPS bought Chicago logistics startup Coyote Logistics for $1.8 billion in what was one of Chicago's largest tech exits in recent years.
