Manufacturing startup Phasio raises $3.8m to accelerate industry

Manufacturing tech startup Phasio has raised $3.8 million in a seed round led by AirTree Ventures.

[L-R] Harry Conor Lucas, CEO and co-founder, Phasio and Sudharshan Raman, chief product officer and co-founder, Phasio.

This funding is to help bolster the manufacturing industry and global productivity.

Co-founded by Australian entrepreneur, Harry Lucas and ex-CSIRO researcher, Sudharshan Raman, Phasio is digitising how manufacturers quote, design and interact with customers to unlock new ways of working.

Generating over $113 billion in value in 2020-21, the manufacturing industry is a driving force behind the local economy. But compared to international counterparts, Australia’s manufacturing industry is falling behind.

Globally, manufacturing contributes an average of 16 percent to a country’s gross domestic profits (GDP). But in Australia, the manufacturing industry is responsible for just 5 percent of GDP.

Amidst the backdrop of current geopolitical tensions, there’s a need to increase high-value manufacturing and prioritise sovereign manufacturing capabilities to create a more resilient economy.

Harry Conor Lucas, CEO and co-founder at Phasio said manufacturing accounts for about a quarter of Australia's national research and development investment.

“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,” he explained.

Phasio’s manufacturing interface provides an end-to-end workflow between stakeholders (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.

Lucas said his vision with Phasio is to elevate a new wave of local manufacturers onto the global stage.

“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,” he said.

“Phasio offers an alternative to the us-vs-them mentality. We can have our local manufacturing industry, but also benefit from working with the right partners.”

Sudharshan Raman, chief product officer and co-founder of Phasio said its manufacturing interface is not just a tool.

“It's a carefully designed ecosystem rooted in a deep understanding of the challenges that both manufacturers and customers face,” he said.

“Securing this seed funding allows us to come out of stealth mode and accelerate our go-to-market strategy. This includes scaling our engineering team to further develop Phasio’s interface, and support growing demand.”

Among those contributing to the round include 500 Global, Entrepreneur First, Michael Sorkin’s Gattaca Ventures.

Founded in 2021, Phasio’s solution is rapidly scaling the digital manufacturing industry. In addition to its core interface, Phasio has developed ManufacturingGPT (mGPT), an AI agent on its interface to instantly answer customer questions about manufacturing processes and therefore improve industry productivity.

Today, more than 50 manufacturers use Phasio across a growing number of markets including Australia, South East Asia and Europe.