East Liberty-based Digital Dream Labs Inc. (DDL), the company behind the popular Cozmo and Vector programable robotic toys, announced it plans to start having some of its products made domestically instead of in China, where its toys are currently manufactured. It's the first step in what the company hopes will someday lead to the bulk of its manufacturing orders being filled in the U.S.
DDL has tapped Freeport-based Dynamic Manufacturing to make the company's Overdrive product, a customizable racetrack and racecar platform that combines artificial intelligence and robotics for racing battles. More specifically, DDL will contract Dynamic Manufacturing to produce the printed circuit board design and related assemblies for the Overdrive product, which is currently listed as "coming soon" on DDL's website.
"The advantage of doing this type of work here in Pittsburgh is the talent and skill level requires no need to look elsewhere for assistance, and the cost of manufacturing is lower than [in] other parts of the United States," Chad Zwigart, a business development engineer at Dynamic Manufacturing, said in a DDL press release. "We are a contract manufacturer and therefore, DDL’s project aligns perfectly with all the services we perform: Engineering services, electronic manufacturing, electromechanical assembly, cable & harness assembly and aftermarket services."
For Jacob Hanchar, CEO and Co-Founder of DDL, bringing the manufacturing of the company's products to the U.S. is more about control than anything else, especially when it also offers such a proximity advantage. In fact, he said it'll be "a little more expensive" for DDL to make its products here, but it's a price he said he's willing to pay given the potential end result.
"For the past two years, I have had no control over international events, I have no control over what governments do, I have no control over what a vendor will do in China. I can't sue them, even if I sued them, they would just laugh their butts off. I have zero influence and control," Hanchar said. "So for the first time, we will actually have control over our manufacturing. It will be local. It'll be under U.S. law. It'll be less than an hour away from my house. If there's a problem, I can drive there first thing in the morning, it's in the same time zone. It's all of those advantages, but control is number one."
Hanchar said DDL plans to order 10,000 Overdrive units f rom Dynamic Manufacturing, though he couldn't offer a definitive timeline as to when those products would be available for consumer purchase other than saying his hope is that it'll be by this year's holiday season.
The plans to have at least one of its products manufactured domestically comes just a month after Hanchar first announced his interest in doing so; in May, he said, "when you do the math, [manufacturing domestically] makes a lot of sense ... because before it was price prohibitive and it made sense to be abroad. But if things are going to be price prohibitive abroad, you might as well do it at home."
DDL employs 40 workers, 30 of whom call Pittsburgh home. In April, it raised a $2 million bridge round investment — its largest to date — led by Pittsburgh-based private equity firm iNetworks. Momentum for the company has been building ever since DDL acquired Anki Robotics and Artificial Intelligence's assets — which included the rights to Cozmo and Vector — in January 2020 for an undisclosed sum. San Francisco-based Anki raised over $180 million in funding since its founding by three CMU alums in 2010 before it shut down operations in 2019.
Hanchar said DDL reached $5 million in revenue last year on an accrual basis.
