Sight Machine is a manufacturing analytics company based in the Ann Arbor SPARK Central Innovation Center. It takes all the different resources available to manufacturing companies – quality, ERP systems, etc. – and integrates them into a digital twin of a factory to help stakeholders in the manufacturing process improve quality and efficiency.
The value Sight Machine provides its clients is illustrated in its work with a major global apparel company. For this Fortune 100 Company; it not only automates the process of data collection and analysis, Sight Machine works across a number of factories simultaneously. The intelligence it provides is helping this client resolve issues like debugging over several different locations, offer insight on what’s going on in individual plants, and how similar assets are performing in different locations.
In the last year, Sight Machine has achieved several key milestones from its home in downtown Ann Arbor. Of note is its $15 million Series B, led by Jump Capital.
In addition to attracting capital from the coasts, Sight Machine has attracted the attention of Michigan investors; three Ann Arbor-based VCs have invested in the company.
“Sight Machine was an attractive investment for eLab Ventures because it is addressing one of the biggest problems in manufacturing today,” explained Bob Stefanski, co-founder of eLab Ventures. “As the manufacturing world becomes fully automated, Sight Machine's real-time, end-to-end data analytics platform gives manufacturers the visibility and insight to improve the quality of their products and the efficiency of their production. It gives manufacturers a level of transparency that has never been possible before and allows them to make real-time adjustments before product quality starts to decrease, thus providing immediate return on investment to its customers.”
“We love to invest in Michigan companies, and believe Michigan offers some great advantages for startups and investors, but that is not the only reason we invested in Sight Machine,” he added. “We believe Sight Machine is better positioned than any other company in the manufacturing analytics space and has a great team in place to execute on its vision.”
Sight Machine is using the capital it’s raised to add to its great team. Its staff of data scientists and engineers has more than doubled in size, to more than 50 employees compared to a team of 20 at the start of 2016.
Sight Machine’s co-founder and CTO Nate Oostendorp explains that the company’s growth this year shows no sign of stopping. “We’re working on offering our customers self-service data preparation. We’re building new tools that will give customers the ability to instrument our technology without us being there; for Sight Machine, it’s an asset in terms of scalability of the business model.”
“We’ve made key hires in data science and are on the edge of where big data and current thinking about quality and engineering data meet,” he added. “There’s going to be a lot that happens in terms of AI and big data, and we’re excited to be on the forefront.”
With regard to the company’s ability to hire top tech talent, Oostendorp says Sight Machine’s location is strategic. He said, “A company like Sight Machine couldn’t exist anywhere other than Ann Arbor. There’s a confluence here of high tech talent as well as regional expertise in manufacturing and automation. There’s no place else on the globe where you’ll find that magic combination.”
Having a talented and innovative team is one factor in Sight Machine’s success. Another is the company’s focus on delivering on customer needs, a part of Sight Machine’s mission Oostendorp believes can be an asset to other entrepreneurs.
“It’s important to recognize that you don’t know all of the situations where your technology will be used,” he said. “If you can let the customers lead and be responsive to their needs, you can achieve success you might not have anticipated.”