Stell: Announcing Our Preseed Raise
Legacy aerospace and defense projects are notoriously over-budget and delayed. The combined cost overrun for the Department of Defense’s (DoD) Major Defense Acquisition Program portfolio in 2015 was US$468 billion, with average schedule delay of 29.5 months - why? Causes include bureaucratic processes, technology development risk, poor incentive structures, and complexity of supply chains and projects. While new space and defense start-ups have entered to disrupt this market, top-line demand is only growing.
Now, proliferation of solutions for launch to orbit, the shift of the defense industry to build new systems for geopolitical competition, and the reshoring of American manufacturing are placing the aerospace supply chain under immense pressure - and creating a huge opportunity.
Currently, the supply chain fulfills and tracks critical technical operational information via emails and PDFs, or housed in ad-hoc documents. Manufacturers will collect rich data on materials and parts, and then reduce that data to little more than an artifact vs. an active source of usable data. Engineers at both suppliers and integrators end up spending 80% of their day doing paperwork or searching for information across disconnected systems. Legacy industry leaders are retiring and Gen Z and Millennial workers are faced with filling the manufacturing talent gap, using outdated systems and processes plagued with manual data entry and paperwork.
At Stell, we believe in the power of small and medium business owners to meet the high demand for specialized and critical parts for American defense and space projects. Aerospace systems have been built in the small machine shops in every town across America for the last 50 years, and we want to serve and reinvigorate this ecosystem. American livelihoods and spirit depend upon this diverse group of small businesses - not on a small group of select companies in Silicon Valley.
Stell’s platform is digitizing the relationship between aerospace companies and their suppliers with a living specification workflow. Aerospace companies and their suppliers can collaborate and communicate technical specifications and deliverables all on one platform, replacing PDFs. With Stell, requirements and deliverables are enshrined and searchable, enabling on-time and to-quality parts. Engineers and buyers are empowered with modern tooling which makes manufacturing information accessible and useful.
Stell’s mission is to serve the hardware engineers and innovators who are the foundation of aerospace and defense.
That’s why we’re thrilled to announce that we’ve raised an oversubscribed $3.1M round led by Wischoff Ventures and Third Prime VC. This capital will help us scale our team, build out the Stell product, and work with our first design partners and customers. Thank you to the rest of our investors as well: Picks & Shovels VC, Banter Capital, Rolling Fun, and our amazing team of angel investors.
What’s next
We’re growing! We’re hiring software engineers and designers.
We’re also looking for future customers to work with as a design partner for our first iterations. If you or someone you know is working at a growing aerospace or defense company, and is in the midst of setting up your supply chain, managing supplier quality, and onboarding suppliers, please reach out!
