Engineers Adam Keating and Jeremy Andrews were tired of using spreadsheets and screenshots to collaborate with teammates. So we started the startup Colab to build a better way.
The two met as undergraduates at Memorial University of Newfoundland, where they studied mechanical engineering together. As they were completing their final internships before graduation (Andrews at Tesla and Keating at medical startup Reflection Medical), they learned that professional engineering teams needed to collaborate with clunky tools: spreadsheets and PowerPoint. I realized that it depends on the deck.
“We experienced firsthand the downside of compiling critical design reviews by emailing design screenshots back and forth,” Keating said in an interview with TechCrunch. “This resulted in frustratingly long review cycles, endless administrative tasks, and issues that slipped through the cracks despite everyone's best efforts.”
Entrepreneurial-minded Keating and Andrews decided to form a company called Colab to build the mechanical engineering collaboration suite they wanted. Keating said the company's tools are currently used by teams at Ford, Johnson Controls and Schneider Electric, where engineers can review design files, capture and track feedback from a single dashboard, and Can document problems.
“Colab allows multiple engineers and cross-functional stakeholders to review designs together and build on each other’s feedback,” said Keating, now CEO of Colab. . “Colab brings together design discussions previously buried in emails, spreadsheets, and notebooks into a platform that reintegrates them into enterprise systems like product lifecycle management. This makes it easier to focus on decision-making.”
Colab stores customer design data, such as 3D models and engineering drawings, in the cloud. Built-in sharing tools allow engineers to send files to one or more suppliers while keeping selected information, such as feedback and comments, private.
Image credit: Colab
While AI isn't currently a major part of the Colab experience, Keating says it will become important in the coming months. Colab uses growing customer data in an anonymized and privacy-preserving manner to enable engineers to make “more informed” decisions while automating routine and administrative tasks. I am planning to build a model.
“Colab has a huge amount of user-generated natural language data, or design feedback, that isn't necessarily captured in other enterprise systems,” Keating said. “As a result, Colab is able to explain and analyze why designs evolve based on human insights. Colab understands not only how a design has changed, but also why it has changed. ”
Meanwhile, Colab operates on a Software-as-a-Service model and appears to be doing well financially. Keating said his revenue has doubled in the past six months. He expects paid add-ons scheduled to be released this year and next to further boost profits.
Colab today announced that it has raised $21 million in a Series B funding round led by Insight Partners with participation from Y Combinator, Kickick Capital, and Pelorus VC.
“The $21 million, which brings Colab’s total capital to $40 million, is a special investment with half of it intended to accelerate the expansion of existing go-to-market activities and the other half invested in bigger bets such as AI. ” he said. “After building a highly efficient business over the past few years, much of the investment will go towards expanding our team.”
Colab aims to grow its workforce from 86 people, most of them based in Newfoundland, where Colab is headquartered, to up to 120 people by the end of the year as it expands into Canada and the United States. Masu.