Seeing is believing

Foundry Lab is a Wellington-based advanced manufacturing startup that promises to use digital metal casting to produce real parts in hours, not weeks. The Peter Beck-backed company has built something like a microwave on steroids that can cast metal parts for automakers and other manufacturers much quicker than a 3D printer. 

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In some ways, coming out of Wellington as a manufacturing company has put Foundry Lab on the back foot. Auckland is really the manufacturing hub of New Zealand, and New Zealand itself is far away from any of Foundry Lab’s potential client base. 

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That’s why Foundry Lab’s plan from day one has been to scale, to put itself in front of more robust markets like the US and Europe. 

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Foundry Lab raised a $12 million Series A in 2021, with Blackbird leading the round and participation from GD1, Icehouse Ventures, K1W1, Founders Fund, Promus and WNT Ventures. Since then, the startup opened up a demo centre in Fremont, California, where it has been evaluating potential customers and hopes to begin selling its first microwaves by the first quarter of 2024. 

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I sat down with David Moodie, Foundry Lab’s founder and CEO, to discuss why getting in front of the market lends New Zealand companies credibility, why an in-house talent recruiter should be one of your first hires, and how to approach scaling manufacturing. 

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Get yourself, and your product, in front of your market

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“One of the problems is we’re a mile away from anything out here in New Zealand, and we’re bringing out new tech that’s doing stuff at a speed that no one believes us,” says Moodie. “We’re this unknown entity from an unknown country, and what I was concerned about was trust.”

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That’s why creating a demo centre in Fremont – the Silicon Valley city best known for being home to Tesla’s first factory – was so important to Moodie. Seeing is believing, and after taking potential customers through an evaluation process to determine their level of seriousness, the plan is to make a part for them from start to finish. 

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The founder says getting over to the US has been about more than just showing off Foundry Lab’s product; it’s also vital for finding new investors and customers.

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“Kiwis who think you can do it from here are missing a huge opportunity,” says Moodie. “The reality is you’ve got to get into [sleeping pill] zopiclone and fly a lot.”

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Moodie described a recent trip to the US that he kept extending because each time he met one contact, they’d introduce him to another, and another, until he was on “this sort of pub crawl of America”.

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He kept his schedule open and remained flexible for new bookings, some of which brought him onto factory floors where he witnessed firsthand the problems manufacturers don’t publicise but nevertheless need solved. 

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Moodie says don’t be afraid to ask for introductions, even when you’re in a meeting with some hotshot and you’re still amazed they even talked to you to begin with. 

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“It’s having the gall to say, ‘Hey, by the way, who else can you introduce me to?’”

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Hire an in-house recruiter at the start

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Foundry Lab has just hired someone to head up its in-house people and talent department, and Moodie says he wishes the company had done it sooner. 

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Actually, that’s something a lot of startups say, according to Moodie, who recently did some outreach to New Zealand startups that were scaling fast. The common thread was that they hired an in-house recruiter from the start.

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Building the right team is so vital that it makes sense to find someone dedicated to shoulder tapping the exact talent you need. 

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Moodie says he and his operations manager had been handling recruitment along with their other duties, but he found hiring to be “horrendously time consuming”. Finding someone with the right skillset for a New Zealand startup building niche technology, he says, can sometimes feel like searching for a needle in a haystack. 

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Consider outsourcing manufacturing to scale

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Foundry Lab’s goal, at least in the near term, is to be a pilot manufacturer – meaning the startup will probably build the first 10 microwaves in-house, but then will outsource to a contract manufacturer in order to scale. Moodie says Foundry Lab will still oversee final assembly to ensure safe practices with some critical components and “high IP stuff”, but at this stage doesn’t think it wise to try to own the whole production line.

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Contracting out makes sense for a couple of reasons. The first is that Foundry Lab’s machines are  large, so shipping from New Zealand across the world isn’t ideal. It would make more sense to manufacture units closer to the end markets – so perhaps in Mexico if the market is the US or eastern Europe if the market is Europe. 

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The second reason comes down to an assessment of Foundry Lab’s strengths.

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“What are we good at? Are we actually an assembly team, or are we a bunch of scientists and engineers and nerds? How far do I want to go into production and do [that] on my own?” says Moodie. “When you’re a smaller company, trying to spread yourself super thin is probably not a great idea. Maybe you lose some profit on this initially, but it’s actually worth going to someone who knows what they’re doing so you don’t encounter all the teething problems.”

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In other words, Moodie says early-stage startups should focus on establishing themselves and getting product to market before trying to vertically integrate. 

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