Cofactr
Canvas Category Software : Cloud Manufacturing : Computer and Electronic
Streamline critical and agile hardware supply chains, enhancing speed and accuracy in procurement. We help electronics and other complex manufacturers get what they need when they need it by connecting engineering, procurement, and logistics.
Assembly Line
Cofactr Raises $17M Series A to Streamline Supply Chain So Hardware Manufacturers Can Iterate Fast While Complying With Regulations and Policies
Cofactr, a supply chain and logistics management platform that streamlines production, processes and policies for critical hardware manufacturers, today announced the close of its $17.2M Series A funding round. The raise was led by Bain Capital, one of the world’s leading private investment firms, which invests in companies that are transforming traditional industries. It was joined by existing Seed investors Y Combinator, Floating Point Ventures, Broom and DNX. The new investment brings Cofactr’s total funding to $28.8 million.
Cofactr’s platform is already in use by 50+ companies, representing a mix of hardware manufacturers and R&D groups at major digital enterprises with ambitious plans to diversify into hardware products. These customers span both high-compliance sectors, such as aerospace, defense, robotics and medical technology, and consumer-facing industries, such as autonomous vehicles and wearables. With an initial focus on electronics, Cofactr is now seeing significant demand from companies navigating electromechanical and mechanical supply chains as well.
The company will use the funding to build on this momentum by scaling go-to-market efforts and growing its suite of supply chain risk management and process tools. The company plans to introduce additional product categories, with multiple applications slated to launch each year.
Which Component Swaps Provide Maximum Value?
There is one supply chain strategy that is useful for reducing supply chain risk in moderate volume or high-volume production: create variants of a design and manage production of variants. The approach is not new, but it is becoming the norm rather than the exception.
Every component plays its unique role in a product, but not all components create the same level of value. Certain components are absolutely critical to executing primary functions in a product, and they have very few or no replacements. If companies want to take a supply chain risk mitigation strategy, they will have to take a hard look at components that have few replacements in order to maintain sustained production of their product.
Unfortunately, it can be very difficult to balance the need to use value-creating components with risk reduction. It can also be incredibly time consuming to create a large number of variants that address every possible at-risk component in a given design. This means a design and procurement team should prioritize which components create the most value in an end product yet carry the highest risk.
Individual BOMs for each variant are best separated based on alternates that cannot be interchanged between devices. Suppose you have two design variants for a product, and each uses a different FPGA. If these FPGAs have different footprints and pin connections, then each variant should have its own BOM. Furthermore, if you’re kitting your own components, or using an inspection and kitting service, then each should have its own kit as well.