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A Singapore-headquartered manufacturing technology startup with an Australian co-founder has raised $3.8 million in a seed round led by AirTree Ventures, allowing Phasio to 'come out of stealth mode' and bring its design editing tools to market.
Co-founded in 2021 by Australian entrepreneur Harry Conor Lucas and former CSIRO visiting scientist Sudharshan Raman, Phasio's interface provides an end-to-end workflow between buyers and manufacturers to create instant quotations, collaborate on designs, and manage personalised order experiences.
By empowering manufacturers to build better, Phasio is helping to secure supply chains and accelerating the pace of manufacturing.
"Our vision with Phasio is to elevate a new wave of local manufacturers onto the global stage," says Lucas, the CEO and a University of Adelaide graduate with global experience including with JPMorgan and the European Space Agency.
"We believe that local manufacturing is the lifeblood of product innovation, and that by empowering local manufacturers to do more, we can in fact grow the manufacturing industry for everyone globally.
"We can have our local manufacturing industry, but also benefit from working with the right partners."
Raman, the chief product officer (CPO), emphasises the interface is not just a tool, but is rather a carefully designed ecosystem rooted in a deep understanding of the challenges that both manufacturers and customers face.
"Securing this seed funding allows us to come out of stealth mode and accelerate our go-to-market strategy," he says.
"This includes scaling our engineering team to further develop Phasio’s interface, and support growing demand."
Phasio currently works with more than 50 manufacturers worldwide in markets such as Singapore, Australia, Germany, India, the UK, Greece and the Netherlands. Contributors to the round include 500 Global, Entrepreneur First, and Michael Sorkin’s Gattaca Ventures.
Whilst the startup's scope is international, the founders have a strong focus on improving manufacturing in Australia, where the sector is responsible for just 5 per cent of GDP compared to the global average of 16 per cent.
Amidst the backdrop of current geopolitical tensions, the group also highlights a need to increase high-value manufacturing and prioritise sovereign manufacturing capabilities to create a more resilient economy.
"Manufacturing accounts for about a quarter of Australia's national research and development investment," says Lucas.
"But right now, the industry is stuck with inefficient, siloed processes that are slowing manufacturers’ ability to imagine, design, and create, and with it, our economy."
In addition to its core interface, Phasio has developed ManufacturingGPT, an AI agent on its interface to instantly answer customer questions about manufacturing processes and therefore improve industry productivity.
Phasio’s platform includes a number of integrations across the manufacturing workflow from Computer Aided Design software (Fusion360, CREO, Solidworks), accounting software (Xero, Quickbooks, Zoho) and shipping providers (Australia Post, UPS, FedEx).
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