Ponoko and ShopBot announce partnership

September 16, 2009
Media Release

Ponoko and ShopBot announce partnership

More than 20,000 online creators meet over 6,000 digital fabricators

San Francisco, CA – The launch today of www.100kGarages.com begins a new chapter in how things are made and distributed, enabling anyone with an Internet connection to get almost anything custom made and delivered from local state-of-the-art digital makers.

The website is a partnership between Ponoko, the world’s easiest making system, and ShopBot, a world leader in the design of affordable, high- performance digital making tools.

Using the 100kGarages website anyone can get their ideas made locally with the click of a mouse, and delivered within just a few days. It is powered by Ponoko’s online ‘click to make’ system and ShopBot digital fabricators in 54 countries around the world.

For the innovators who President Obama called “the risk takers, the doers, and the makers of things”, 100kGarages is an exciting new service for everyone who wants to get things made – by making it yourself or finding someone to make it for you.

People are creating a wide range of products like tables, chairs, cabinets, car parts, signage, boats, musical instruments, gaskets, sheds, housing and all of those impossible to find things made from wood, plastic, metal and composite materials.

“Ponoko’s making system gives our ShopBot owners the ability to receive a new stream of work from a wide range of customers,” says ShopBot’s President Ted Hall. “Our partnership also means everyone now has easy access to their own local 3D fabricator. This is the first step to providing a solution for the doers and makers out there who want to join in re-building America, one garage at a time.”

To date over 30,000 DIY, hard to find and consumer goods have been made using Ponoko. “Our online making system makes it easier than ever before to turn ideas into real things,” says David ten Have, Ponoko’s CEO. “And by partnering with ShopBot we bring together more than 20,000 creators and over 6,000 fabricators to use a powerful online service to design, make and deliver goods locally”.

From today, anyone can visit www.100kGarages.com to get things custom made by searching a map for a local garage workshop, or submitting a request and choosing from bids placed by a range of ShopBot owners to make almost anything. It’s free for everyone to search and submit requests, and for fabricators to post profiles and bids.

About Ponoko

Ponoko, the world's easiest making system, is an online marketplace for everyone to make real things. It’s where creators, digital fabricators, materials suppliers and buyers meet to make almost anything. More than 30,000 user-generated designs have been instantly priced online, made and delivered since Ponoko was selected to launch at TechCrunch40 in 2007. Ponoko has reinvented how goods are designed, made and distributed leading to profiles in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, BBC News, Financial Times, The Globe & Mail, WIRED Magazine, The International Design Magazine and more. (www.ponoko.com).

About ShopBot Tools

ShopBot Tools designs and manufactures low-cost, high-value CNC tools for digital fabrication of wood, plastic and aluminum products. With more than 6,000 ShopBots in thousands of shops in the US and 54 countries around the world, ShopBot is one of the largest producers of CNC routers in North America. (www.ShopBotTools.com).

ENDS

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