A startup investors call "the Google of 3D" is moving its headquarters and focus of future growth to Columbus from Cincinnati.
Physna Inc. – the first software that searches objects in three dimensions, hence "physical DNA" – also has launched a free consumer version on top of the more robust product used by manufacturers and engineers to identify and source parts.
Disruptions to supply chains caused by the coronavirus pandemic have sent demand soaring as companies seek replacement vendors, CEO Paul Powers said.
Physna's revenue through the first nine months of 2020 is four times that of the same time last year; totals aren't disclosed.
“Our aspirations are to become a global tech giant,” Powers said. “There’s no upper limit for how big this can be.
“All of the world is three-dimensional. If computers can 'think' in 3D, that’s everything.”
CTO Dennis DeMeyere – recruited mid-pandemic from the actual Google – has moved to Columbus from Silicon Valley, and the majority of hiring is to Columbus. Sixty percent of the company's 26 employees are in Columbus.
The move is expected to be finalized once the impacts of the coronavirus slow down, Powers said.
Powers said the company was attracted to Columbus since it has a larger talent pool than Cincinnati, is closer to customers and offers a good quality of life.
“It’s a great place to be a startup,” Powers said. “There’s also a lot of great businesses to work with. It’s very central. Drive (Capital) being up there of course is a plus.
“Columbus is a great place to attract (new hires) to come if you want to have them move.”
Physna had been using space in the office of Drive, which led a $6.9 million Series A round last year, but likely will outgrow it soon after work-from-home ends.
Powers, who needs to float between both sites when offices reopen, has an apartment in the Short North. He’s spending the pandemic on a farm outside Cincinnati.
“When Covid is over I’ll be up in Columbus a little bit more,” he said.
An attorney with degrees in astronomy and astrophysics, Powers founded the company five years ago as a way to improve intellectual property protections, because he could find no way to search 3D data for potential patent infringements.
It quickly became apparent the technology, which never existed before, had hundreds of uses. Five different algorithms using complex math can search shapes based on verbal description or a partial 3D scan.
“That’s usually the hardest part of (building) something physical,” he said. “We’ll find all the companies out there that supply those parts. ... It helps you innovate at the speed of your imagination.”
The startup decided to focus first on making product designers more efficient. It can suggest what other parts fit, guess what part is missing from an engine, and list all suppliers for a part of that shape.
Physna also has a repository of shapes and parts that designers can copy to plug into a design, similar to the Github software repository of sections of code.
Many manufacturers don't realize how many redundant parts they order because they're classified by a name or number instead of precise shape, Powers said.
“Literally every company has this problem,” he said. “You’ll see 100 different bolts from 100 suppliers. If they’re all identical bolts – which is common – (but) one of those suppliers goes down, now you can’t finish your airplane. You’re also wasting money.”
Customers have saved up to 40% on supplies, he said.
“That’s the difference between a surviving business and failing business,” Powers said.
As the company grows it can spread into other applications, such as helping cancer researchers predict tumor growth, he said.
Customers are in industries including defense, automotive and medical devices.
The free search engine, called Thangs, exposes the potential of the paid product to a wider audience – but it's also a public service, say, for someone mystified by what just fell off their car.
“We want to get that out there so everyone has the chance to obtain value from it,” Powers said.
Plus, Physna wanted to release a search engine to consumers before an imitator did it, but not so well.
Although Powers is a Cincinnati native, starting the company there was coincidental, because the CTO he chose as co-founder, Glenn Warner Jr., lived in northern Kentucky.
Warner unexpectedly died last October.
“It was a professional and emotional crisis all in one – followed up six months later by coronavirus,” Powers said.
“When Glenn passed away the team rallied around that to say, we’ll work that much harder. Nobody left," he said. “The company now is way stronger than it was last year despite him passing away. It’s been rough, but we were able to do it, and that just speaks to the team and how driven we are.”
