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Hubs 2019 wrap up

A year of rapid growth, advanced product innovation, global manufacturing events and honorable awards - 2019 has without a doubt been an incredible year for Hubs. Here's what we've been up to this past year.

Written by France Preecha

A year of rapid growth, advanced product innovation, global manufacturing events and honorable awards - 2019 has without a doubt been an incredible year for Hubs.

This year, we’ve witnessed our team achieve our biggest and most important milestones to date. We’ve introduced a new manufacturing service, opened offices in 3 new locations around the world, and grew from a small group to a highly international, talented team of 100+ members - and counting.

Want to see all we’ve been up to this past year? Here’s our 2019 yearly wrap up.

1) $18M in series C funding

In March, we took pivotal steps towards our mission to drive the future of on-demand manufacturing. Raising $18 million in funding to accelerate the development of our platform, means we can provide engineers with faster lead times, more accurate quoting, and better structural integrity of parts.

2) We manufactured parts for a fleet of drones to scale reforestation

We’re proud to have manufactured parts for DroneSeed’s fleet of tree-planting drones, currently used in reforestation projects, including #TeamTrees led by famous YouTubers, MrBeast and Mark Rober. Using the Hubs platform, DroneSeed was able to gain access to the rapid manufacturing technologies needed for their custom-built drones and tight turnaround times.

3) Sending Hubs’ parts to space

Once again, we helped to create parts that survived outer space. German Orbital Systems (GOS), a company that provides turnkey satellite solutions to customers in aerospace, telecommunications, and optical communications sector, leveraged our fast lead times for CNC machining to quickly get their parts manufactured and launched into space.

Prior to this, we’ve also worked with Kepler to get their space-grade parts up into orbit. This year, they've chosen to partner up with SpaceX to launch a portion of their low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellations using the Falcon 9.

4) Placing 8th on Deloitte Technology Fast 50 2019 award

A revenue growth of 1258% between 2015 to 2018, puts us in the top tier of the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 list alongside many other inspiring companies based in the Netherlands. This, of course, wouldn’t have been possible without the hard work  and innovative thinking of our fantastic team.

5) Opening our U.S. headquarters in Chicago

Over the past year, our revenue from the U.S. market alone has tripled, making it our fastest growing market by far. Opening an office there and having a dedicated sales, customer service and engineering U.S. team, will allow us to provide quality support and faster service to our customers there.

Endorsed by mayor Rahm Emanuel, we were proud to announce the official opening of our U.S. headquarters at mHub in Chicago, a city known for being the central hub of American manufacturing. Considering the thriving tech and innovation ecosystem that it possesses, it was clear to us that Chicago was going to be the perfect home for our U.S. office.

6) Expanding our European offices with 2 new locations in Berlin and Paris

In addition to our Chicago office opening at mHub, we also opened up two new European offices in Berlin (MotionLab) and Paris (Morning Coworking - Clichy). The German and French markets have been crucial to our expansion within the European manufacturing industry, and we are excited to see how these markets develop in the upcoming years.

7) French launch event at Station F

Hubs officially launched in France and we revealed Tony Fadell, inventor of the iPod, founder of Nest, and head of Future Shape, as one of our backers. To celebrate, we hosted an event Station F in Paris to discuss the future of manufacturing with leading French engineers and industry experts.

8) Introducing next-level automation in manufacturing

We brought manufacturing automation to the next-level by introducing advanced features, like instant quoting, design validation, and smart order routing to a global network of suppliers. You can now quickly spot errors before submitting your part for production, source custom parts in a more cost-effective way, and share quotes with your team or purchasing department using our quote management tool.

9) Launching sheet metal fabrication as a service on our platform

We expanded our platform’s offering and included sheet metal fabrication as a service, a key manufacturing technology in many industries today. For sheet metal, a range of materials are available, including aluminium, stainless steel, mild steel, and copper, as well as processes like laser cutting and bending.

10) The start of our “What is 3D Printing?” YouTube series

Our “What is 3D Printing” YouTube series started as part of our plan to continue educating the world on digital manufacturing. Starring Bed Redwood, our Director of Sales and author of The 3D Printing Handbook, the series serves as a great resource that can be used to help designers and engineers quickly master the core aspects of 3D printing technologies.

11) Moving to our new HQ in Amsterdam

We relocated to a bigger office space in the bustling Houthavens area of Amsterdam to better accommodate our ever-growing Hubs team. This year, we doubled from around 50 to over 100 people, and we can’t wait to welcome more members to help us revolutionize the manufacturing industry.

12) Traveling to Belgium for our annual company trip

We travelled to Ardennes in Belgium for a weekend of adventure and team building. We shared many memorable moments with some of the best people, so here’s to many more company trips to come in the future!

Our year in review

Although 2019 will always be a year to remember for us, our journey doesn’t stop here. We can’t wait to keep pushing boundaries to make cutting edge, high-quality manufacturing accessible to engineers worldwide.

Learn more about the Hubs platform here.