ITHACA — “I feel like it’s back to the future,” explains Sean Whittaker, CEO of the Incodema Group, Inc. in Ithaca. “3D printing was coming into its own, just as I was learning CAD at SUNY Delhi back in the early 1990s. My first job was with NCR working as a mechanical engineer with printers. Later, I joined a startup, Ithaca Peripherals, where I was responsible for developing new printer products every year. Now, 25 years later, I’m building a new company dedicated to 3D printing.”

 

Incodema 3D, a division of the Incodema Group, was incorporated as an LLC in 2014. The first company accepted into the START-UP NY program, the new 3D printing enterprise moved to Freeville (about 10 miles northeast of Ithaca) in January of this year. It is situated in a 60,000-square-foot building, the former home of a furniture warehouse and showroom. The new operating company currently occupies 15,000 square feet and employs 15 people as it begins a $40 million capital investment over five years in additional 3D printers.

 

The business plan projects adding another 70 employees to the current 15. “We bought our first 3D metal printers in 2012 at $1 million each,” recalls Whittaker. “The goal is to have 100 machines lined up in this facility.” Whittaker projects Incodema 3D sales next year at $8 million and growing to $60 million by 2018. The building is sited on 24 acres, allowing for future expansion. Whittaker is one of four partners in the 3D company, each owning 25 percent.

 

Incodema is an acronym for the first two letters of four words — invent, concept, design, and manufacture. It’s a concept Whittaker developed to eventually become a single-source provider of the prototyping and manufacturing of metals and plastics. The launch of Incodema began in 2000, when the Ithaca native was frustrated by the long delay in creating metal prototypes, while plastic versions were produced quickly. In February 2001, he incorporated Incodema Group, mortgaged his house to buy a $400,000 metal-prototyping machine, and rented 2,000 square feet of space in Ithaca’s Technology Park.

Meteoric growth
Whittaker’s conviction that metal prototypes could be produced quickly paid off. Incodema’s growth has been meteoric, fueled both by organic sales and by acquisitions. The year after incorporating his first company, Whittaker moved to a 6,000-square-foot building and just two years later, bought a 30,000-square-foot plant in Ithaca, formerly Kohler Machines. In December 2007, he acquired Midway Metal-Forming Corp. in Cortland from the owner, Richard Cincotta. The company made metal parts from flat stock and wire; it also designed and built tooling. The next acquisition was Newcut. Located in Newark, New York (Wayne County), the company manufactured precision-metal parts by the photo-chemical machining (PCM) process, an industry alternative to the traditional stamping, punching, laser- or water-jet cutting, and wire electrical-discharge machining. Newcut was a supplier to Incodema. Whittaker’s efforts to buy the company took two years, largely because of environmental problems associated with the property.

 

In 2012, Whittaker bought the equipment of a plastics-prototyping company named DPT (Design Prototype Technologies) located in Syracuse. He also hired six employees of the company. This August, he moved the former supplier to Incodema 3D in Freeville. The most recent acquisition occurred in 2013, when the Incodema Group added EMT in Endicott, a company founded in 1946. Formerly known as the Endicott Machine & Tool Co., Inc. and now rebranded as Engineering Manufacturing Technology, EMT positions the Incodema Group for both short- and long-run production of metal parts, sheet-metal fabrication, assemblies, fulfillment, and wire fabrication. All of the acquisitions have been asset purchases.

 

“Today, the Incodema Group is four companies with one vision,” declares Whittaker. “The consolidated operation employs 240 people, and this year we’ll generate

$40 million in sales. The group currently owns 205,000 square feet of manufacturing, office, and shipping space to house more than 200 machine tools … My whole life has been spent around computers, and most of our equipment is computer controlled.”

The four companies
Together, the four companies make the Incodema Group a single-source provider. Incodema, located at 407 Cliff St. in downtown Ithaca, is an “S-corporation” owned 100 percent by Whittaker. It employs 75 people, running two shifts, in a 30,000-square-foot plant. The company specializes in sheet-metal and metal-stamping prototyping and in short-run production. It also produces plastic prototyping. In 2015, Incodema is spending $1.75 million to expand the sheet-metal and CNC machining at the plant. Newcut, also an “S-corporation” owned 100 percent by Whittaker, is located in Newark, New York, and specializes in photo-chemical machining (also called etching or milling). The plant contains 15,000 square feet with a $3 million, 20,000-square-foot addition scheduled for completion in October. Newcut operates with 25 employees.

 

EMT, situated in Endicott, is an LLC owned by three stockholders: Whittaker, Maynard Fahs, and James Kirkwood. Each owns one-third of the outstanding shares. The 80,000-square-foot facility is designed for long-run production of metal parts, metal fabrication, assembly, and fulfillment. EMT employs 125. Management has committed $5 million this year for expansion and equipment purchases. The newest member of the Group, Incodema 3D in Freeville, provides a facility dedicated to what Whittaker describes as the “wave of the future” — plastic 3D printing and additive manufacturing. “We are currently the third-largest producer of 3D metal parts in the country,” notes Whittaker. “It won’t be long before we are number one.” Incodema 3D presently manufactures in the 60,000-square-foot building with 15 employees. The equipment is designed to run 24/7/365. The stock ownership is divided equally among four partners: Whittaker, Fahs, Kirkwood, and Greg Galvin.

 

Incodema has assembled a strong team of employees. “These four companies contain a depth of experience,” affirms Whittaker, “starting with our 45 engineers, designers, and quality-control experts. [The Incodema Group currently has 12 patents pending.] The staff is highly trained, efficient, talented, dedicated, and focused on our customers. In fact, this team thrives on challenges … We have no problems attracting and retaining workers. For many positions, we start with just a strong work ethic, which fortunately is … [prevalent] in this area. Our job is to train those in entry-level positions and then move them into more skilled positions such as CNC machining. Because Incodema 3D is part of START-UP NY, we can offer new hires at that company a very attractive package that competes with any section of the country … Our proximity to Cornell University also gives us access to engineering graduates.” Whittaker also points out that Incodema 3D’s START-UP NY status is tied to Cornell University, which gives the company access to cutting-edge advances in metal technology.

Partners
Whittaker has also assembled a strong team of business partners. Galvin was the deputy director of Cornell Nanofabrication and director of corporate-research relations. In 1993, he was a co-founder of Kionix, formed to develop micro-mechanical technology and optical-switching technology. Galvin sold part of the company in 2000 to Calient Technologies Inc. and the remaining shares in 2009 to Rohm Co. for $233 million. He is the chairman and CEO of Rheonix Inc. (polymer-chip, micro-fluidic technology) and of Mezmeriz Inc. Galvin holds M.S., Ph.D., and MBA degrees and is the chief technology officer at Incodema 3D.

 

Kirkwood, who is a partner both in Incodema 3D and EMT, was formerly the executive VP of Kionix, CEO of Wilcox Press, and the controller of the Pyramid Companies. A CPA, he also served as the VP of finance at Scholler Technical Papers and as the executive VP of special projects at Calient Optical Components, Inc.

 

Fahs is the president and CEO of Fahs Construction Group, Inc., a privately held construction company headquartered in Binghamton with more than 250 employees. He is also the president and founder of Hearth Management LLC, a chain of senior-living facilities with 14 locations in New York, Indiana, Connecticut, and Tennessee. Fahs is a partner both in EMT and Incodema 3D.

 

In addition to his employees and partners, Whittaker credits the Incodema Group’s success to professional associates who support the four companies. Tompkins Trust Co. and Chemung Canal Trust Co. provide financial services; Pinnisi & Anderson provides legal intellectual-property advice; Hinman, Howard & Kattell, LLP and Klausner Law offer legal business advice; and Sciarabba, Walker & Co. LLP is its outside CPA firm.

Well-positioned
Even as they face stiff competition, Whittaker likes how the group’s four companies are currently positioned.

 

“With strong competitors in places like Texas and Florida, the group is finally positioned as a one-source provider,” he stresses. “This is very attractive to our customers who are concentrated in the aerospace, energy, medical, consumer-products, military, and motor-sports sectors. The parts we produce are lightweight, so transportation costs play a minor role in competing anywhere in the world, and overnight shipping allows us to deliver quickly. Put these considerations together with our employee team, capital investment, technology, and the fact that our current 3D parts are as good or better than the parts manufactured using the existing [industry] gold-standard processes, and it’s not surprising that customers are beating on our door…. ”

 

Despite the multiple projects on his plate, Whittaker is not slowing down. “I’m a believer in change,” he says. “In fact, I thrive on change. Yes, we have multiple projects underway in all four companies, but progress doesn’t come [by waiting on my timetable]. The Newcut Company is working on proprietary technology to produce conductive fabric utilizing the chemical-etching process. Our engineering department has produced a 4 mm. nylon, tin-copper-silver, conductive fabric which selectively removes sections of metal from the nylon, creating specific designs within the body of the material. The process allows us more definition to the finished design, the ability to make micro-sized components with precision placement, and removal of the conductive properties. The technology has multiple applications: resistive heating, sensors, patch antennas, and flexible circuit boards, to name a few. We have created a new company around this product called ‘SensAttire’.”

 

Putting together the Incodema Group has been a vision of Whittaker’s since he first saw the need for rapid metal prototyping. It took him 14 years to grow to the current consolidated sales volume of $40 million. His growth projections call for at least tripling sales just in the next five years. “Everything in the business world is vision and timing,” says the Ithaca entrepreneur. At age 47, he has both.          

 

SYRACUSE — TCGplayer, a fast-growing digital marketplace that sells game cards and related products through its website, says it expects to add about 20 full-time employees in each of the next five years.

 

The Syracuse–based company has added more than 60 employees since the start of 2013, when it had just 12 workers, according to owner and president, Chedy Hampson. The firm currently employs 75, and should be above 80 before the end of October, he adds. All but one of the employees works full time.

 

TCGplayer is the website and “doing business as” name of Ascension Gaming Network, Inc., the company Hampson co-founded in 1998 with Raymond Moore, who currently works as its VP of products. Its offices are on the 10th floor of the State Tower Building in downtown Syracuse at 109 South Warren St.

 

TCG is the acronym for “trading card games” — such as Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh! — which represent the company’s core business. TCGplayer does not manufacture any products, but sells and ships cards sourced from about 1,000 stores located across the country, Hampson says. It also sells miniature games (games that use figurines) and board games.

 

The company has generated considerable revenue growth since its current business model began to take over in 2008. Hampson declines to provide revenue totals, but says revenue increased 160 percent in 2011, 64 percent in 2012, 101 percent in 2013, and 58 percent in 2014. He projects company revenue will rise another 40 percent in 2015.

 

That growth contributed to TCGplayer’s need to expand its workforce — it has added about 40 new employees since the start of this year, alone — and find space for them. In early 2014, Hampson first began looking for office space, and shortly thereafter moved TCGplayer into a temporary location in the State Tower Building.

 

The firm moved into its current 6,000-square-foot location last November, but that isn’t enough room to accommodate the influx of employees projected for the coming years, according to Hampson.

 

“We absolutely need more space,” he says. The company is seeking to expand into a location with between 15,000 and 18,000 square feet.

 

The types of jobs that comprise the workforce, and that will continue to grow, include information technology (web developers and quality-assurance testers), customer service, and positions in the shipping department, according to Hampson.

How it grew
It took nearly a decade after Ascension Gaming Network was founded (then called Ascension Web Design) before it adopted its current model of selling game cards through the TCGplayer website.

 

Prior to 2008, the company’s primary business was running content-driven websites (produced by gaming experts, paid for by Ascension Gaming Network) and selling advertising space on the websites to game companies like Hasbro Inc., according to Hampson.

 

However, around 2008, advertising revenue dried up as the game industry changed its marketing method, and Hampson was forced to change his business model or sell Ascension Gaming Network.

 

At that time, a handful of smaller stores were paying TCGplayer to advertise in its website, which included links to those stores’ own sites. Hampson decided then to change TCGplayer.com to an aggregate site that would sell game cards for the stores that were advertising on his web page, and TCGplayer would get a commission for each sale.

 

“We’re going to make less profit per store because we’re taking commission, but if we can get 10 stores … to register with us and sync up their inventory and go through all this work, we should break even,” Hampson says he thought at the time, with the revenue totals earned under the defunct advertising model.

 

Within a year, 25 stores were represented on TCGplayer.com, he says.

 

To stay afloat during the transition, Hampson says he took out a $40,000 loan in 2008 from Bank of America, the only time he ever tapped a line of credit for his business.

 

Hampson and his team were forced to launch the revamped TCGplayer website before the store was completely ready because his assets were running dry. He could not have waited another month, he says.

 

It wasn’t long before Hampson decided to set up the website to process credit-card payments, he says. Before that, customers had to go through the payment process for each seller from which they were buying. If they bought 20 cards from 10 different stores on TCGplayer.com, they would have to check out on 10 different websites.

 

Shortly after, the company began seeing irregularities from purchases made in Brazil, so TCGplayer shut down all purchases from South America.

 

To combat the threat of fraud, Hampson hired the first two full-time developers for the website. “That first eight months, they didn’t build anything that would help us jump forward. All they did was build a credit- card fraud [detection] system,” Hampson says.

 

“The banks will allow you to process credit cards, but they just won’t give you any information or any help in protecting yourself,” he adds. He expressed confidence in the security system that was developed, comparing it to the security of PayPal.

 

The new TCGplayer model proved successful. “We were growing at a decent clip,” Hampson says, and the addition of more developers and customer-service representatives was required to maintain it. Advertising was cut out entirely from the company’s revenue sources.

 

TCGplayer currently sells products from between 800 and 1,000 stores, according to Hampson.

The latest boom
Hampson and his team built upon the model in 2014 when they added what is known as a fulfillment system, called TCG Player Direct. Instead of TCGplayer being only an aggregate website that seeks to connect buyers and sellers, it now keeps many of the trading cards sold by the other stores in stock and ships them to the consumer itself, Hampson says.

 

This has the added benefit of reducing quality issues with the cards themselves because they are graded by TCGplayer employees when the cards come in (about 3 percent are mailed back to stores because they are in poor condition). It also cuts down on the number of packages that get mailed to customers who order cards from multiple sites in one purchase. Hampson likens it to how Amazon works.

 

When cards are shipped to customers, TCGplayer places new orders with the appropriate stores to refill its stock. Not all cards are kept in stock by TCGplayer, Hampson says.

 

The warehouse, as he calls it, is where this work takes place. The addition of the fulfillment system has resulted in the creation of about 40 new jobs, according to Hampson.

 

The company was founded in Syracuse because Hampson and Moore are from the area, but it remains here, in large part, because of the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) location near Syracuse Hancock International Airport, which is designated as a Processing and Distribution Center.

 

“While most people will say, ‘You need to be in Kentucky or other locations for shipping,’ the size of the product that we’re shipping is in bubble mailers or envelopes, which is USPS–based,” Hampson says.

 

As the website has boomed, the company has collected data on prices for different cards to add further value to TCGplayer, according to Hampson.

 

“We take all that data of all these stores in the country and compile it down into pricing algorithms to give people,” He says. “More than anything, we are a price guide. We’re the only way to really establish a price for these products.”

 

To help facilitate that service, the company provides that pricing data to about 80 mobile apps that consumers can reference. Hampson says other websites have also begun to use its data.

Looking ahead
TCGplayer’s product offerings may expand in the future to include comic books, retro video games, and other related products, according to Hampson.
“It’s the types of things [where] the value is undetermined, it’s out of print, and it’s up to us to barter,” he says.

 

In addition, he says he wants to begin working with other companies in the Syracuse area to help make the region more attractive to other businesses looking to expand or move.

 

“The idea is to build up an IT infrastructure here, because it just doesn’t exist; so that’s what some of this expansion is about,” he says.

 

Hampson can sell a company on TCGplayer, on the city itself, “but then they start wondering, ‘what are my other opportunities, just in case?’ And there isn’t a lot,” he says.

 

He hopes that by being a company that represents an opportunity, and by combining with other companies to market Syracuse as an emerging tech hub, it will create a movement of other businesses to the area.

 

“It’s a long-term need,” he says.

 

Another possible step the company is exploring is expanding its TCGplayer Direct service to international customers. Currently, all orders outside of the country are packaged and shipped by the seller, not by TCGplayer.

 

To achieve this, the company (as Ascension Gaming Network, Inc.) applied for a $200,000 grant through the Consolidated Funding Application (CFA) program, and also requested $300,000 in tax credits through the Excelsior Jobs Program, both of which are state-run programs.

 

Both applications were submitted through the Central New York Regional Economic Development Council (CNY REDC) as part of its plan for Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Upstate Revitalization Initiative (URI). The URI is a competitive program that will award up to $500 million over five years to three of the state’s seven upstate regions.

 

The growth projected by TCGplayer includes its international expansion plan, Hampson says. He declines to specify if the growth is contingent upon receiving the grant and tax breaks

 

“The CNY REDC request would certainly help us accelerate the execution of our expansion and hiring plans and further investments into the business and the CNY region,” Hampson says in an email to CNYBJ.

 

The state will announce what regions have been awarded funds later this fall, according to the URI website, which did not provide a specific day or month.

 

On the application, Hampson projected 42 jobs would be created over the five years in which TCGplayer would receive the grant money and tax breaks. “We believe we can bring in 150 new jobs, but the way the grant works is if you miss by one single person, you get nothing,” he says, so the firm provided a significantly lower estimate to play it safe.

 

The workplace

Many of TCGplayer’s employees are recruited from the retail industry, according to Hampson. The company provides competitive pay, he says, 70 percent of health and dental insurance coverage for full-time hourly workers and 100 percent for salaried workers, and offers a 401(k) plan.

 

“It goes beyond what you would normally get in a typical retail position,” he says, adding that he has worked to make TCGplayer a positive workplace for the employees.

 

“They go home and they’re gamers. They love to play games, they love to escape, they love to hang out with their friends, and this job sort of smashes those two together.”

 

When the company was faced with the need to grow its workforce considerably, the management team spent eight months establishing core values, which are taken seriously and connect with people, Hampson contends.

 

Finding employees for the IT jobs is more difficult, requiring the use of recruiters, Hampson adds.

 

The effort to establish a positive workplace appears to have paid dividends, as evidenced by TCGplayer being rated as a great place to work in July 2015, by the Great Place to Work Institute, which collects data from companies and surveys employees. A random selection of 55 of TCGplayer employees were surveyed by the institute, and all 55 responded favorably about TCGplayer, according to the institute’s website.

 

The firm was also ranked number 73 on Fortune.com’s inaugural list of the 100 best workplaces for women. The Great Place to Work Institute is a research partner of Fortune.com, and its information about TCGplayer was used to determine the ranking system, according to Fortune.com. More than 600 companies and 135,000 women partook in the survey.

 

Hampson says some of his employees have moved from across the country to work at TCGplayer.               

 

VERONA — Two men who have shared their time, expertise, and business savvy with young entrepreneurs were among those honored during an awards event focused on the upstate New York startup and investor community.

 

John Liddy, who directs the Syracuse Student Sandbox program at the Syracuse Tech Garden, and serial entrepreneur Chuck Stormon were among the winners at the first-ever Upstate Venture Ecosystem Awards.

 

Upstate Venture Connect (UVC) and the Upstate Venture Association of New York (UVANY) hosted the inaugural event on Oct. 9 at the Turning Stone Resort Casino in Verona.

 

Syracuse–based Upstate Venture Connect describes itself as a “public benefit nonprofit creating an entrepreneur-led startup ecosystem for Upstate New York.”

 

Albany–based Upstate Venture Association of New York says it is the “largest and most active group promoting private capital financings across Upstate [New York].” UVANY members range from angel investors and venture-capital firms to private-equity funds and banks.

Liddy, Stormon
Liddy won the “Campus Connector” award, which recognizes the work of a person affiliated with an educational institution who is “leveraging on and off-campus resources and connections to spin-out research startups and/or create opportunities to retain entrepreneurial students,” according to a news release from UVC and UVANY.

 

He oversees the Syracuse Student Sandbox, an “incubator that helps aspiring entrepreneurs push their ventures from idea to company,” according to its website.

Besides his work with that program, Liddy also is the entrepreneur-in-residence at the Syracuse Tech Garden, the Madden School of Business at Le Moyne College, and at the ThINCubator at Mohawk Valley Community College.

 

Stormon won the “Magical Mentor” award, honoring a person who has had a “transformative impact on the trajectory of one or more startup companies.”

 

The news release described Stormon as a “serial entrepreneur with multiple venture-backed companies.”

 

Stormon is an angel investor with the Seed Capital Fund of CNY, LLC. Based at the Syracuse Tech Garden, the fund allows its members to “invest in and guide early stage technology companies in Syracuse and Central/Upstate New York,” according to its website.

 

Stormon is also a co-founder and director of the StartFast Venture Accelerator, a program of UVC. Nasir Ali, CEO of UVC, is also a co-managing director of the StartFast Venture Accelerator.

 

Stormon is also the CEO of RushTera, a firm that works “to make sharing big files less painful,” according to its website.

Schulman, Colligan
A man who serves as a mentor in the StartFast Venture Accelerator took home the “Ecosystem Champion” award, honoring those “who are catalyzing and supporting startup activity across multiple Upstate communities.”

 

Zach Schulman is a member of the UVC board of directors and a managing partner with the Lansing–based Cayuga Venture Fund.

 

In addition, Schulman is a professor in the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University and the director of the school’s Entrepreneurship at Cornell program.

 

UVC and UVANY recognized Buffalo attorney David Colligan as a “Community Catalyst,” someone who organizes “programs to bring together diverse startup ecosystem players in a local community and/or increase the amount of capital and number of active early stage investors in that community.”

 

Colligan is a founding member of Buffalo Angels, according to a news release posted Friday at the website of Colligan Law LLP. Buffalo Angels is an angel-investor network that is a division of the Western New York Venture Association.

Deal of the Year
Besides the individual awards, UVC and UVANY also recognized M/A-COM Technology Solutions’ (MACOM) acquisition of Ithaca–based BinOptics Corp. as the “Deal of the Year.”

 

Lowell, Massachusetts–based MACOM (NASDAQ: NTSI) announced in December 2014 that its acquisition of BinOptics had closed.

 

Binoptics had accumulated nearly $39 million in funding “throughout 6 rounds,” and was sold for $230 million in cash, according to the Ecosystem Awards news release.

 

“The BinOptics sale to M/A-Com Technology Solutions was a great Upstate venture capital success story. Several leading venture VC funds from the Upstate region invested in the company, helping BinOptics to achieve significant returns on their investment upon the exit, and allowing them to continue making investments in the Upstate region,” Sam Ticknor, UVANY executive director, said in the release.