Azavy, an AirBnB for 3D Printing

In college, all the Azavy team members independently had difficulty getting access to a 3D printer. Having lived through this challenge, they created Azavy to efficiently connecting designers with makers (owners of 3D printers).

Co-founder Michael Anderson described to us the vision for the company, ”3D printing is a nascent market with vast potential. We see parallels with the early personal computing industry. With rapidly developing technology, lowering costs, and increasing ease of use, the number of printers and their capabilities are expanding dramatically. Azavy allows everyone to participate in and capitalize on this new technology–by purchasing items, designing products or fulfilling orders.”

Think of this like the AirBnB of 3D printing. You want a design. Someone has a printer. Get it printed cheaper than higher-end 3D printing services through crowdsourcing. The service is similar to Teleport It 3D, but more trusting in the kindness of strangers.

Bringing 3D Printing Costs Down

Consumers buy 3D printed products because they are manufactured just for them and can be made from unique stunning designs. Products bought through Azavy arrive 2x faster and up to 6x cheaper than current competitors. User reviews and feedback establish consumer trust, and Azavy guarantees product delivery or your money back.

How Azavy Works

Designers start selling their 3D designs for a price-per-product that they specify, without requiring any upfront capital. Designers retain full rights to their uploaded files, and can choose to be the sole manufacturer if they do not wish to share their design with other makers.

Makers (owners of 3D printers) monetize their expensive assets which would otherwise sit idle. Azavy allows makers to place bids on products to fulfill orders, and monetize their 3D printers.

Anderson describes the marketplace:

Azavy will rapidly democratize the 3D printing landscape, empowering designers, consumers, and printer-owners. There are two primary sides to the Azavy platform:

1) “iTunes store” for 3D Designs: Designers are compensated on a per-product-sold basis, incentivizing them to create the most desired designs on the market, while retaining full ownership of their digital models. As the store grows, Azavy will be a major ecosystem in the intellectual property space for 3D designs, as physical items become digitized, transferable, and shareable.

2) Dynamically Routed Local Manufacturing: The Next Industrial Revolution will be on-demand, localized production. The Azavy platform makes this possible by connecting designers and consumers with local fulfillers. The secret sauce is the Azavy algorithm for routing work-orders based on consumer preferences, while optimizing for price and delivery time. By dynamically routing orders to local makers, Azavy enables the next generation of manufacturing efficiency – on demand production at the closest possible location.

The Azavy algorithm works by suggesting the best fulfiller for each item, specific to each consumer. Consumers also have the option to choose any of the various makers bids on each product, and the algorithm incorporates customer reviews, adjusting the “preferred fulfiller” for each item and trending to higher-quality manufacturing.

The Azavy vision is this manufacturing model on a global scale. 3D printers, supported by a library of digital designs, and an efficient crowd sourcing and order routing system, will enable production of physical items anywhere in the world on-demand. This is the Next Industrial Revolution, and represents a tidal shift in how people will go about producing products. By dynamically routing orders efficiently, Azavy represents the global production model of the future: items created on-demand, locally, for the cheapest price by available resources.

Azavy launched in April and is targeting early adopters and hobbyist 3D printers in the United States, while looking toward a long-term vision of a global marketplace.

In May, Azavy was named a winner in the Rhode Island Business Plan Competition.

Below is a video made by the Azavy founders.

Learn more at Azavy.