Press Release 7/9/2019

New London, CT — Manufacturing automation startup Autodrop3d LLC was awarded top prize at the inaugural Springfield Innovation Fest last week. Organized by the Valley Venture Mentors program, of whose startup accelerator Autodrop3d has been a participant this year, the event was intended to celebrate entrepreneurs and innovators in the region.

Established in 2011, the Valley Venture Mentors startup accelerator in Springfield, MA helps startup founders speed up the growth and success of their business. Under the direction of Kristin Leutz (CEO) and Dorota Glosowitz (Managing Director), the accelerator program boosts startups with six months of intense training support, access to subject matter experts, and a collaborative peer environment in which to develop their companies.

Sharing the finalists stage with Autodrop3d were Thimble.io, a web-based education platform that teaches robotics and coding through hands-on electronics, The Everywhere Office, which assists companies in giving their employees on-demand access to flexible office space, Vector Health, which engages with patients post-clinic to promote treatment and appointment adherence, and Vivifi, a company that helps individuals capture personal memories.

Since the project’s inception in late 2016, the team’s goal has been to eliminate the pitfalls of utilizing 3D printers in a shared environment. The group that maintained the 3D printers at Spark Makerspace sought to eliminate the substantial hours wasted repairing machines taken offline due to human error. Autodrop3d is bringing simplified 3D printing to the masses by automating time-consuming administration and maintenance tasks felt by librarians, teachers, and makerspaces that utilize shared 3D printers.

Within the Autodrop3d Cloud platform, users can take advantage of professional web-based drafting software to create 3D designs or import models from external design software, order 3D prints in the same website, and receive an alert when completed prints are ready for pick up.

Three of the Autodrop3d team members, Michael Molinari, Drew Gates, and John Scimone, are based in New London County, while the fourth member of their team, Valentin Erastov, is based in the San Francisco Bay area.

Autodrop3d will manufacture and fulfill its initial run of products with initial 3D print solutions available later this summer.

Valley Venture Mentors (VVM) is a Western Massachusetts nonprofit with a mission to help entrepreneurs turn their ideas into thriving, scalable businesses. VVM provides expertise and funding through their Mentorship and Accelerator programs.

Demo 3D printers are running at Spark Makerspace at 225 State St in New London, CT. Interested parties may also join the Autodrop3d team at Spark Makerspace each Thursday evening (6–8pm) for the makerspace’s Electronics/3D Printing meetup.

For more information, please visit autodrop3d.com, or email drop@autodrop3d.com.