Pictured: Liam Casey, CEO and founder, PCH International
Cork headquartered PCH International headed by Liam Casey has acquired a Silicon Valley product development company called Lime Lab, which works with industrial design firms to create cutting edge products.
Casey, known as ‘Mr China’ because of the manufacturing and supply chain empire he has built in Asia, plans to create 15 new jobs in San Francisco by the end of 2012, with plans to double this to 30 people in 2013.
Lime Lab Inc. is a Silicon Valley-based product development consultancy co-founded by Kurt Dammerman and Andre Yousefi in 2009, who said they founded the company because they wanted to “make things”. Lime Lab Inc. places a heavy focus on prototyping, working with industrial design firms to develop products from concept ideation through to manufacturing support.
PCH plans to open a new R&D lab, which will include a full prototyping lab, rapid photo printers, EE lab, soft goods lab and project space/incubator rooms for strategic PCH Acclerator start-up opportunities.
“PCH’s product development services make us very unique, and we are delighted to expand this service to better serve our clients in the US market,” Casey commented. “Our in-house product development and engineering teams differentiate us from traditional supply chain management service providers.
“We architect the most up-to-date sustainable supply chain solutions for many of the world’s top brands, and we believe we enable them to bring products to market in a shorter time frame.
“San Francisco is already a world-class center for design excellence, and is an ideal location for PCH to serve our existing clients in Silicon Valley and attract more entrepreneurial partnerships. Expanding our services to California with this acquisition allows us to respond even more quickly to client requirements in their time zone.
“We are delighted to welcome Andre and Kurt to the PCH team. They bring a cutting-edge level of knowledge and product development expertise to our already world-class team. Because we provide product development together with sustainable supply chain management solutions, our product designers and engineers plan for manufacturability from the outset, which we believe enables a faster time-to-market and peace of mind for our clients. We are very excited about this new development.”
The PCH story
PCH International is responsible for the design and production of many consumer electronic devices and appliances that define technology today.
The company has revenues of US$400m a year and masterminds the design, manufacture and distribution of hardware, from the initial online order to the delivery at the customer’s door anywhere in the world. The company employs 1,200 people worldwide, including 80 people in Cork, where the company is headquartered.
In February last year, PCH raised US$26m from Triangle Peak Partners and Cross Creek Capital. It followed a previous funding round of US$21m in 2008 from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Norwest Venture Partners and Focus Ventures.
In June last year, it emerged that two new investors, Temasek subsidiary Northbrook Investments and J. Christopher Burch, joined existing investors in raising a further US$30m.
