Lumi Industries: a story of Passion and Innovation

Lumi Industries is a start-up born in 2014 inside H-Farm Ventures incubator with a specific mission: to make 3D printing benefits available to everyone with innovative 3D solutions in the field of Additive Manufacturing.

It all started in 2013 by the passion and hard-work of the two founders: Davide and Manuela

Davide is a computer engineer who had to leave the studies to get a job as sale assistant in an electronic store.

But this didn’t stop is passion to learn and experiment.

A cold IT heart with a warm artistic soul!

He tried different form of arts: from sculpture to painting, to drawing on wood with pyrograph. But he is particularly fond of photography, industrial design, and everything related to DIY.
In his spare time he just love to design and create, and work on projects that involve creating something that has not been made before, or that seems impossible, mixing and matching his knowledges and expertises to invent and shape the future!

Here are some of his projects:

I’m Manuela and I graduated in Eastern Languages and Cultures at Venice’s Ca’Foscari University in 2003.

From that time, I had different working experiences in Italy and abroad. I worked as tourist assistant in resorts, as Italian Language teacher for foreigners and cooperated with an International Organization for Migration’s project in the Middle East.

In 2006 I moved to be project manager in China until I was able to create and manage autonomously a branch in India for an Italian furniture company.

I was back to Italy in 2010 and continued to develop a background of customer-service, sales, supply and logistics for some local companies.

2013 was a year of big changes for us.

From that day of late spring when we found by chance a flyer calling for Makers’ applications to the first edition of the European Maker Faire in Rome…our life has not been the same any more!

Davide, who was already getting interested in 3D printing, closed himself up in his inventor’s room, coming out with Lumifold, his first resin based DLP 3D printer, foldable, compact and affordable.

He chose to explore stereolithography, when few people were doing it, since using photosensitive resins you can create very detailed parts. The process is simple: the part to be printed is 3D modeled and then sliced by the software. Each slice is then projected by the external projector on a tray immersed in resin. The light projecting each image is going to shape the object layer by layer while the tray goes down into the vat.

At the first European Edition of Maker Faire, we realized that a new movement of innovation created by people full of passion and positiveness was raising up, and we wanted to be part of it!

Lumifold, the first foldable photo-activated resin based 3D Printer was greeted with success and so was the Indiegogo campaign which launched Davide’s first project in the international market.

In the spare time from our normal jobs, we worked hard in production, creating and assembling each and every piece in our garage….

But isn’t the garage the place where all big and successful stories start?

Let’s hope this is also the case!

By the way we would like to thanks all our neighbors for being patient with us beside the noise we created for months even overnight!

Davide thought this could be the dawn of a new life dedicated to improve the world with his inventions.

You know, If you have a dream you need to give it a chance. It is a big challenge, the path is not easy and there might be though times, but you must try. If not, one day, you will regret it!

And he didn’t want this to happen, and neither I did! So, I decided to support him full time.

We presented our project to H-Farm Ventures incubator, which helped us giving shape to our idea.

In August 2014 we created a team and founded the start-up company Lumi Industries.

During all these months we worked Lumifold out again, we refined and improve it creating LUMIPOCKET: a new entry-level professional resin based 3D printer.

Thanks to some external collaborators we gave it a cool look… As Italians, you know how we appreciate a good design!

We improved also precision and the ease of use, making it a real accessible device and a perfect entry-level instrument for professionals.

In October 2014, on the occasion of the second edition of Rome Maker Faire, the new model Lumipocket was launched officially together with another crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo.

Thanks to all the backers how supported us, we were able to move from a prototype to the production of a real 3D printing device with an affordable price.

All this year was an incredible experience. We had to grow up and move from handicraft creation to a semi industrial production. We had to understand who to develop and run a business and face the nuisances of it.

We have learned so much…

The main lesson we had to learn from this experience as fresh start-up, is that you have never to become discouraged, you need to struggle and be always positive because even if all seems to go smooth, there might always be something not going in the way you planned. And most of the times what seems  to come in your way like a trouble becomes in fact an opportunity.

So you always need to be flexible and responsive to find a new solution. You need always to be prepared to fix something in your plan, in your product, in your working method, in your team, in yourself.

And just go on, following the dream…because, as the say, the best part of a travel is not to reach the defined destination, which may change along the way, but the path itself.

After one year, we are still here, ready to challenge ourselves once again, trying a new crowdfunding campaign.

Davide has closed himself again in his inventor’s room and came off with a new product.

Some people have lamented that Lumipocket need an external projector and that you connect it to a computer to use it, so he removed all this creating Lumipocket LT.

To the functional and elegant Lumipocket’s body, we added an upper module containing fine electronics which allow a UV laser, mounted n a personalized version of a SCARA robotic arm, to move over the tray with three functions: to 3D print on resin, to engrave on plywood or similar materials, to etche pcbs.

This new project will be launched on Kickstarter soon and we do believe people we love it as we do!

This is only one of the ideas Davide has in mind and that we would like to implement!

There are tens of new innovative and useful devices we have in our minds and we could develop to give our small contribution in making this world a better place.

But at this point we need more support, your support!

And we do hope that all our ideas, thanks to your help, will become finally real!

But waiting for that day, we will never stop dreaming, inventing, struggling…