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How Helping Factories Move Into A Digital Future Is Fueling This Raleigh Startup’s Growth
In a short few years, Jason Massey’s commute from Mebane to work has ballooned, stretching furthur and furthur down Interstate 40. But he doesn’t mind the traffic, with his startup, Ndustrial.io, continuing at its current growth trajectory.
Started out of American Underground in Durham in 2011, Ndustrial.io — a company that is using software and internet-of-things technology to digitize fatories — is moving into a freshly renovated office on Fayetteville Street in downtown Raleigh later this year.
The company is trading a cramped one-floor office, also on Fayetteville Street, fot two floors at 224 Fayetteville St., a historic property that was once home to a Woolworth’s.
The company’s steady growth in the past two years necessitates the new office to house its growing workforce, which has tripled to 28 employees this year and is still growing.
‘We’ve never really raised any real money’
Part of the impetus of swapping Durham for Raleigh in 2018 had to do with that growing headcount. As it brought on more employees, the company found most of them lived closer to downtown Raleigh and the commutes to Durham were becoming too rigorous.
Since the company started — originally using the name Sustainable Industrial Solutions — the businesses model has changed quite a bit, moving from the installation of things like solar panels to creating a software management platform to help factories run more efficiently and more digitally oriented.
The goal is to take all the data produced by the different systems, from a decades-old refrigeration system to a warehouse management system, and put it all in one algorithm. Then, using information-of-things technology and its software to monitor energy usage, Ndustrial.io can pinpoint exactly where factories can save money in their energy usage, resulting sometimes in millions of dollars in savings.
‘WE’VE NEVER REALLY RAISED ANY REAL MONEY’
In 2015, the company changed its name to Ndustrial.io and took on $1.4 million in private-equity money, but it hasn’t returned to the well for more funds yet. Massey said the company is currently running on revenue and is making a profit.
