CoLab Software raises $21M to help hardware engineering teams accelerate product development

ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland–(BUSINESS WIRE)–CoLab Software, a technology company building collaboration solutions for mechanical engineering and hardware development teams, today announced its fully subscribed Series B round with $21M USD in funding. Global software investor Insight Partners led the round, with participation from existing major investors, including Y Combinator, Killick Capital, and Pelorus VC.

In the last two years, CoLab has grown revenue nearly 10x, while partnering with engineering teams at leading manufacturing organizations, including Ford, Schaeffler, and Komatsu. By using CoLab’s Design Engagement System to review engineering files, capture and track feedback, these teams have accelerated design cycles while increasing design quality and product quality.

The funding will be used to reach new customers and accelerate development of technology, including artificial intelligence. CoLab will also invest in expanding relationships with existing customers, an effort that has yielded successful results so far with 158% net revenue retention (NRR) in the last 12 months.

CoLab will also use the funds to expand its team, adding 30-40 new roles at headquarters in St. John’s, Newfoundland and remotely across Canada and the United States. This will include three key executive hires: a VP of Sales, a VP of People, and a VP of Customer Success.

“As products become more complex, companies hire global teams of specialized experts to analyze tradeoffs and evolve designs. But the tools these teams have to review designs, collaborate, and make decisions haven’t evolved to handle the complexity,” explains Co-Founder and CEO Adam Keating. “The result is a huge administrative burden for engineers and unacceptable risk of issues slipping through the cracks.”

A 2023 survey conducted on behalf of CoLab found that 43% of issues identified during design reviews are never documented or addressed. CoLab’s platform streamlines manual, multistep processes for sharing designs, documenting feedback, and tracking issues. By centralizing reviews and feedback in a single platform, teams generate referenceable design histories for every part as a byproduct of doing their work.

CoLab captures data on how engineering teams evolve their designs, generating quantitative insights. This same data can be used to train AI models. For customers that opt in, CoLab’s ReviewAI will help engineers make more informed decisions and automate routine tasks and administrative work.

“By applying machine learning and generative AI, we can enhance and extend the value of CoLab’s core platform for mechanical engineering teams,” comments Jeremy Andrews, Co-Founder and CTO. “We’re excited to accelerate delivery of these solutions, as a result of this funding round.”

CoLab plans to unveil new solutions and an early look at their product roadmap at the company’s first user conference, The Design Engagement Summit, taking place in St. John’s August 27-29, 2024. The agenda also includes comprehensive talks from engineering practitioners at companies like Schaeffler, Autoneum, and iRobot.

CoLab’s Series B comes at a time when interest in manufacturing, hardware engineering, and supply chain technology is on the rise.

Josh Fredberg, Managing Director at Insight Partners and a member of CoLab’s Board of Directors, explains: “Manufacturing organizations are adopting Cloud based software faster than ever before. There is significant opportunity for vertical SaaS to improve outcomes, increase efficiencies and replace manual processes. Insight has made a number of exciting investments in manufacturing related SaaS, including this recent investment in CoLab.”

Early stage startup accelerator Y Combinator (YC) published a Request for Startups in early 2024 that includes themes like machine learning to simulate the physical world, new enterprise resource planning software, and bring manufacturing back to America. CoLab participated in YC’s summer 2019 batch, and YC will invest additional funds in CoLab as part of their Series B.

Learn more about CoLab Software at www.colabsoftware.com