#StartupsEverywhere profile: Jifei Ou, Founder and CEO, OPT Industries
This profile is part of #StartupsEverywhere, an ongoing series highlighting startup leaders in ecosystems across the country. This interview has been edited for length, content, and clarity.
Using Advanced 3D Printing Technologies to Revolutionize Manufacturing
OPT Industries is an additive manufacturing and 3D printing company that is working to take innovative technologies to scale for mass production of an array of products. We spoke with Jifei Ou—Founder and CEO of OPT Industries—to learn about the technology OPT has developed, his experiences navigating the immigration system as a startup founder, and how the U.S. can better incentivize entrepreneurship in the manufacturing industry.
Could you tell us about your background and how it led you to OPT Industries?
I grew up in China and studied in Germany for my bachelors and masters degrees. After that, I joined the MIT Media Lab as a research assistant and as a Ph.D. candidate. During my time at MIT, I focused my research on additive manufacturing, 3D printing, and how to push the envelope of the technology in these fields. During the later stages of my Ph.D. program, I organized two study trips to China for students at the Media Lab. On the first trip we visited various factories, ranging from textiles to alloys to circuit boards to motors, and saw how an array of products are made. Then on the second trip, we worked on the factory floors shoulder to shoulder with workers and technicians in order to better understand their operating systems.
These were transformative experiences for me. The U.S. is a leader in additive manufacturing, but in China a big textile factory can span several buildings, or even be a whole city designed around making textiles. Seeing things at that scale got me thinking about how I could bring additive manufacturing outside of small shops to operate at the scale of the massive production like the textile mills in China. This led to OPT Industries, where the mission is to rethink the design and production systems of additive manufacturing.
Tell us about OPT Industries. Can you provide further detail about the technology you have developed and how you work with clients to create superior products for their industries?
What sets us apart from other 3D printing and additive manufacturing companies is that, technology-wise, we specialize in making micro-structures at a massive production scale. We’re engaged in precision microfabrication, but not just doing a small lab construction. Rather, we focus on how to make millions of meters of materials and designs. We have a proprietary 3D printing machine, which is, I believe, the world’s first roll-to-roll photopolymerization system, and it enables us to produce materials with no limitations on length.
We also have our own software system, with a unique design software environment that allows engineers and designers to develop super fine microstructures. The last piece is the polymer formulation. We designed our own, raw photopolymers that are used for the whole production. So there’s these three key aspects, the hardware, software, and polymer, coming together to get us to a place where we can produce functional materials and products at a larger scale.
The other differentiator for OPT, from the business perspective, is that most of the 3D printing companies and additive manufacturers are looking at how to sell the machines they build. We want to be the manufacturer, and develop and produce superior new products. We sell products, instead of having brands or companies buy our system, which allows OPT to get really deep into manufacturing.
Has the COVID-19 pandemic affected OPT? Relatedly, we saw that you developed a nasal testing swab at a time when the country was experiencing an acute need for more COVID testing. Could you tell us a bit about that experience?
In the beginning, we were like most other startups. When the first lockdown happened our investors and startup friends all said it was time to tighten the belts. We were fully focused on making sure that we would be able to survive this crisis. As a team, there was a sense of uncertainty about what would happen, in large part, because we could not go to the office anymore even though our work centers around building things.
But, over time, we discovered the pandemic presented us with an opportunity. Here in Boston we are at the center of the biomedical research world. As the pandemic raged on, we got a request from a research lab at Beth Israel Medical Center. They saw a shortage of nasopharyngeal swabs coming, so they were going to a number of organizations to see if they could come up with a novel solution to address that. This was quite an opportunity for us because the super-fine fiber structures that are critical components of the swabs are what we specialize in producing.
The team was able to design a very quick iteration of a swab through consultation with the researchers at Beth Israel. In two days we had a design prototype, and they did internal efficacy testing which showed our design was not only comparable with the gold standard nasopharyngeal flocked swab, but ours performed better. Once we knew this product was effective, we realized there was a great opportunity to make a contribution in the context of the pandemic’s swab shortage. Within two weeks we got the necessary FDA registration and then went to work on streamlining the whole production process.
At that point we only had one of our additive manufacturing machines. However, the system is quite scalable and modular, so in two months we were able to set up five machines and were making about 20,000 swabs per day. We started supplying swabs to Kaiser Permanente’s healthcare system, and Henry Schein, a medical supplies distributor.
I think there are two sides to the pandemic story for us. While it was a challenge, we had the opportunity to show how our systems and additive manufacturing can address a major supply chain problem on a large scale. And we had a chance to contribute to the pandemic response. But we were also able to show that we are not just a stop gap; we can produce a better product. Efficacy and microbiology lab testing shows that our swab has substantially higher sensitivity than the traditional swab. Now we are focusing on how we can make this the new standard for swabs.
You came to the U.S. as a student before deciding to start your company. Was it a challenge to navigate the immigration process? How can policymakers do more to enable international entrepreneurs to launch companies in the U.S.?
I was very lucky that I got into MIT, which has been supportive of international students. I came to the U.S. on a straightforward student visa. And after that the international student office helped me get the necessary visa extensions. So because I had such strong systems and institutions helping me, I was able to get off on the right foot.
However, there was definitely some confusion when I was trying to start my company. If you're a graduate student, when you are granted the Optional Practical Training visa you can be self-employed for the first year, but when you are granted the STEM extension to that visa, you need a sponsor. Basically, you cannot be your own boss anymore. That forced me to look into other options, like the O-1 visa to see how I could make it work. Luckily, I got my green card approved, so this is not a concern for me anymore.
But I still hear from a lot of colleagues who want to start a company, and are worried, “What is going to happen after the first year?” They will probably have to find another type of visa, but that’s not easy. A visa like an O-1 is not really for everybody. If you have to show that you have a lot of published works or something like an art exhibition, that’s a completely different standard for an entrepreneur who may just have a really great idea and wants the chance to make it work.
OPT’s website highlights your interdisciplinary and globally diverse team. How does working with a diverse team contribute to OPT’s work and success?
A majority of my employees are international students on H-1B or Optional Practical Training visas. Given the nature of additive manufacturing and 3D printing, and the technology that we're working on, it requires an interdisciplinary approach to really push the envelope. Our work involves not only engineering disciplines, but also chemistry, material science, computer science, mechanical engineering, automation, and design, because we're trying to come up with that end use product.
This interdisciplinary collaboration requires individuals to have a deeper appreciation of what other disciplines are doing, and a certain mutual respect and appreciation. That facilitates a lot of communication and collaboration within the team. For example, when we're developing our swab our work takes us down to such a fine scale—the size of the human hair—that the material property matters, the machine's setting matters, the thickness of your design matters. And I think it is our international, multicultural backgrounds that facilitate those conversations
Are there any tech startup issues and concerns that you believe should receive more attention from local, state, and federal policymakers?
I think there are two things. First, in part based on my experiences and observations: in China, if you're a manufacturing-related startup company, there are tax policies, real estate,and hiring incentives that are very beneficial for a young company. In the end, there's a whole package of benefits that encourage people to go into manufacturing and develop those businesses in China. Whereas, in the U.S. I'm still struggling to find similar incentives. This is reflected in the broader public dialogue. You do not really see a large number of people encouraging entrepreneurs or graduate students to go into manufacturing. I hope that will change. You see the Biden Administration talking about this idea more and that could definitely help it become part of the broader conversation. But I also think that will require tax and real estate policy innovations to attract more talent into advancing the manufacturing sector through tech.
Second, is that we need to provide resources and support for the next generation of manufacturers. There are a limited number of manufacturing alliances or groups out there and they all have a pretty traditional top-down structure without much representation from younger generations. I say this with all the respect for the generations that came before me. But, there's a lot of new technology in U.S. manufacturing and it’s not necessarily being carried out at scale. I think we need to bring younger innovators into broader industry conversations and provide them with the support so they can lead the sector forward.
What are your goals for OPT going forward?
From the short-term perspective, right now we are very focused on developing medical and cosmetic products. We chose these fields because they require a lot of customization and high performance products. Beyond that, OPT has developed a platform technology. We want to make sure that this know-how we are building up can be translated into broader applications in sports, consumer electronics, and more. And at a very high level, we want to redefine how people think about the practice of product development and manufacturing. All of this can be tied together, not separate—right now design happens in one lab and it is shipped off to a manufacturer far away, and we need to instead bring things together to solve issues with supply chains, manufacturing time, and quality.
All of the information in this profile was accurate at the date and time of publication.
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