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Cincinnati manufacturing tech firm nabs investment

February 5, 2018  |  E-Tech
E-Tech

Cincinnati Business Courier

A Cincinnati tech firm that helps manufacturers automate their factory floors is the recipient of investment from a Charlotte private equity firm.

West Chester-based E-Technologies Group received investment from Charlotte private equity firm Falfurrias Capital Partners. The amount of the investment was not disclosed.

E-Tech, founded in 1993, helps manufacturers automate their processes and learn from their data. It will help manufacturers put sensors on their machines and write a program to computerize the factory floor.

"We take useful data from the factory floor and put it into a format that management can take action from," co-founder Doug Fagaly told me.

Small manufacturers are increasingly turning to automation to increase their return on investment and improve reliability and production quality. That fits in with Falfurrias' mission and is a reason it invested in E-Tech, spokesman David Coburn told me.

E-Tech is Falfurrias' first platform investment since it started looking at the automation market as an attractive space for opportunities.

E-Tech started looking for investment as a means to jumpstart its growth. Co-founder Steve Veldhuis said he and Fagaly ran the company in a conservative manner, reinvesting all of its profits for growth. But they reached a point where the amount of investment required to jump to the next level is beyond what the co-founders themselves could do.

"The way we look at it is we built a fantastic foundation for a house and now we've got to put that big shiny mansion on it," Fagaly said.

E-Tech has just more than 100 employees and will be expanding its headcount as it grows the company. The investment will allow it to work on larger projects for customers, ramp up some of its research and development and open satellite offices to increase its geographical footprint. E-Tech does not disclose revenue.

"We felt like we were holding the company back from our conservative nature," Veldhuis said. "(Falfurrias) was a really good match from the very beginning. There wasn't a lot of second guessing."

 

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