Voodoo Manufacturing Announces the Launch of New Print API and Partner Program

It’s only been a month since Brooklyn-based startup Voodoo Manufacturing, one of the biggest high-volume 3D printing factories in the state of New York, announced that it had received $1.4 million in seed funding from investment company KPCB Edge, and that it had joined the Winter 2017 batch for startup investment firm Y Combinator. With the funding, Voodoo Manufacturing was able to expand its East Williamsburg factory, double its number of employees, and add 50 more 3D printers to its fleet.

Last week, a Voodoo blog post introduced two new website features: Order History, where customers are able to view all of their active and past orders, and the Direct Print Status Tracker, which gives users real-time visibility, anywhere on the site, to their current order status. There are a total of five available order statuses, from Prep to Packaging to Delivered. This morning, the company is making another announcement: it is launching a new Print API, allowing businesses to offer on-demand 3D printed products and brands, and it has also started a Partner Program.

The Partner Program is a framework, which lets companies and service providers, like design studios, manufacturing consultancies, and fabrication bureaus, refer Partner customers to each other, and also receive refererals to and from Voodoo Manufacturing. That way, if a certain project falls outside a Partner’s current capabilities, they can refer it to another Partner: this keeps customers satisfied, while projects can commence without a holdup, and still allows the Voodoo Manufacturing partner to make money.

So far, the participating Partner Program companies include:

• Dimensional Fidelity (DiFi)
• Direct Dimensions
• Essentium
• NinjaTek
• Voxel Magic
• XYZap 3D

You can visit the Partner Program page if you’re interested in becoming a Voodoo Partner yourself. We wanted to learn more about why Voodoo Manufacturing started out with the particular partners they did, so we asked Co-Founder and CEO Max Friefeld for more details.

Max Friefeld

“These initial partners are early adopters in a vision that digital manufacturing is the future of manufacturing,” Friefeld told 3DPrint.com. “They are large and small businesses, suppliers, local service providers, and more. They are our launch partners because we think they share our commitment to making our and their customers happy. This program is about matching customers with the best possible services for their needs.”

With Voodoo’s new Print API, businesses will be able to build cutting-edge experiences and campaigns with on-demand 3D printed brands and products. Once an order is placed, it’s automatically routed from the business website or application, right to Voodoo Manufacturing’s factory. The order is then 3D printed, packaged, and shipped to either a single business address, or drop-shipped to an end customer. It’s the perfect process for people who sell 3D printed items on websites like Amazon and Etsy, or a business looking to offer mass customization to a marketing campaign.

The Voodoo Manufacturing Print API offers ease of use through the following features:

• Real-time quotes, or fixed pricing: for 3D models, Voodoo will either agree on fixed pricing, or provide real-time quotes, depending on the use case.
• Automatic order fulfillment: all you have to do is pick from a variety of available color and material print options; Voodoo will take care of the rest.
• Individual customer drop-shipping: your products can be shipped to a single address, or several different ones; Voodoo can even use your custom packaging and include other materials in the shipment.

Some businesses already using Voodoo Manufacturing’s Print API include Cookie Cutter Kingdom and Sightline Maps.

Voodoo Manufacturing certainly hasn’t slowed down since it opened its doors in 2015, partnering with Autodesk and Enable Community Foundation for the largest volunteer prosthetic hand drive to date and helping OpenBCI fulfill its Ultracortex Mark IV Headset Kickstarter campaign. We asked Friefeld if anything else was on the horizon for Voodoo Manufacturing in the next year or so; he tells us that while they “don’t have any major updates since our fundraising story” from last month, he could elaborate on some projections.

“Again, our #1 goal in the next few years is to cut costs by 90%, and become competitive for producing plastic parts for runs of up to 100,000 units,” Friefeld told us. “In sum, we are building a new sort of factory. Turnarounds and iteration cycles are incredibly fast, objects can be customized, and runs can be small. We are taking on the status quo in plastic part production, injection molding.”

Discuss in the Voodoo Manufacturing forum at 3DPB.com.