The company said it will use the funding to help reach new customers and accelerate development of technology, including artificial intelligence.
- JOHN’S, Newfoundland—CoLab Software, a technology company that builds collaboration software for mechanical engineering and hardware development teams, reported that it raised a fully subscribed Series B funding round with $21 million 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, CoLab Software said in a release.
In the last two years, CoLab said it has grown revenue nearly 10-fold 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 are reported to 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 percent net revenue retention (NRR) in the last 12 months, the company said.
CoLab will also use the funds to expand its team, adding 30 to 40 new roles at headquarters in St. John’s and remotely across Canada and the United States. This will include three key executive hires—vice presidents of sales, people, and customer success, respectively, according to the release.
“As products become more complex, companies hire global teams of specialized experts to analyze tradeoffs and evolve designs,” said CoLab Software Co-Founder and CEO Adam Keating, in the release. “But the tools these teams have to review designs, collaborate, and make decisions haven’t evolved to handle the complexity. 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 reportedly found that 43 percent of issues identified during design reviews are never documented or addressed. CoLab’s platform is said to streamline 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, the company said.
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 is said to 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,” said Jeremy Andrews, co-founder and CTO at CoLab Software. “We’re excited to accelerate delivery of these solutions, as a result of this funding round.”
CoLab said it plans to unveil new solutions and an early look at its product roadmap at the company’s first user conference, The Design Engagement Summit, slated to take place in St. John’s on August 27-29, 2024. The agenda also includes comprehensive talks from engineering practitioners at companies like Schaeffler, Autoneum, and iRobot, the company said.
CoLab’s Series B round comes at a time when interest in manufacturing, hardware engineering, and supply chain technology is on the rise.
“Manufacturing organizations are adopting cloud based software faster than ever before,” said Josh Fredberg, managing director at Insight Partners and a member of CoLab’s board of directors, in the release. “There is significant opportunity for vertical SaaS (software as a service) 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.”