Those who work in industries involving physical production understand the importance of steel fabrication. This process enables the creation of components and structures that meet exact requirements for design, strength and precision. Industries like aerospace, automotive, defense and medical, in particular, depend on the most durable and well-fabricated steel parts.
However, most fabricators—people working as welders and assemblers—still recognize the physical demand for high-quality, on-time delivery products as a common issue.
This issue is what led three NC State graduates to create a product and company that would automate steel fabrication to make it faster, easier, safer and ultimately seamless for fabricators of any skill level. Raleigh-based CN-Seamless designs and manufactures portable computer numeric control (CNC) operated machines that make robotic precision as adaptable as—and easier than—manual torch operation.
CN-Seamless recently participated in the Andrews Launch Accelerator, a program that provides guidance and grants to NC State-grown founders. (GrepBeat has also written about the startup’s fellow ALA cohort members: Alpacasews, Modi and Locally Grown.)
Co-Founder and CEO Josh Cooper said that one of his co-founders (and now COO) Sam Marcom previously worked at a steel mill and noticed an issue among fabricators who were cutting in the field. There was not a sustainable solution where these fabricators could bring their own automated products to the scene because the equipment was so large. As a result, the fabrication was all done by hand.
Cooper said this “old-fashioned” method leads to all sorts of different imperfections: It’s difficult, it’s usually uneven and it’s a lot more dangerous, as guiding a heavy torch can leave one vulnerable to flying sparks.
“The [challenge] with getting the operators who [are] used to… using a hand torch is making a product that they feel more comfortable using,” Cooper said. “Yes, it’s a mechanical problem with having the right factor and precision, but it’s more so a software problem, and making sure that the fabricators are super comfortable learning how to use our machine.”
This consideration led to CN-Seamless’s first product, the Mach 1, which is a versatile aid to a current fabricator. Since the startup was incubated from the minds of previous fabricators, they knew to include a touchscreen application to the Mach 1 that works as easily as an iPhone, according to Cooper.
They also thought to make the product accessible anywhere in the field; the Mach 1 is a packable, 25-pound machine, and also mountable to the materials being cut. With these features, Cooper said their machine is extremely helpful for rapid prototyping of different shapes and parts that can go to production almost immediately.
“The whole impetus of what we’re trying to figure out is, how do we make automation accessible for the end users and the individual operators who previously are doing stuff manually?” Cooper said. “This machine is also super fun to use since you can set things up and just monitor it as it’s cutting, making us much better fabricators ourselves.”
Cooper founded CN-Seamless during the last semester of his master’s program at NC State, and the Mach 1’s first prototype was launched in February of 2023. After much product iteration and many customer discovery calls, the first official Mach 1 was delivered that September. Cooper said the startup now has 16 customers using machines.
Since its launch, CN-Seamless has been featured in expos and showcases across the country. The startup also received an Air Force grant this past summer, enabling Cooper to visit Air Force bases and work directly with civil engineers to deploy the product and convey its utility to those engineers in the field.
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Startup: CN-Seamless
Co-Founders: Josh Cooper (CEO), Sam Marcom (COO), Dario Muller (CTO)
Founded: 2022
Location: Raleigh, NC
Website: www.cn-seamless.com/
Funding: Between rounds
Cooper said that as a generally curious engineer, he’s been to over 100 facilities and is interested in seeing how current fabricators are working—and where there’s a chance for CN-Seamless to help.
“There’s no better feeling than having someone that’s been doing torch cutting by hand for 30 years of their life see our machine and pick it up and say, ‘this is like the next new thing,’” Cooper said. “Truly, there’s nothing more fulfilling than knowing that someone is using our product that is directly adding value to their company and doing something more efficiently with it.”
Cooper asks that any interested parties, from steel fabricators to automotive companies doing research and development, check out the startup’s newsletter and YouTube videos to get the full sense of what the company has been and is currently achieving. He also emphasized that people can participate in online and/or physical, live product demonstrations, which typically take up to 15 minutes.
