For eight years, FACTUREE trusted SashiDo to run its backend so its team could focus on building the product, expanding its manufacturing network, and growing the business across Europe.
When FACTUREE started in 2017, its founders had an ambitious idea: make the procurement of custom manufacturing parts dramatically simpler.
Moritz König knew the problem firsthand. As a development engineer, he had experienced how much time traditional procurement could consume. Finding suppliers, sending individual requests, and navigating a fragmented process took time away from engineering itself.
He believed there had to be a better way.
Together with his co-founder Christopher Walzel, an experienced IT specialist who took responsibility for the company's technological foundation, Moritz set out to build it.
The idea was to rethink a fragmented process. Instead of buyers coordinating with numerous individual suppliers, FACTUREE would become a single point of contact, matching each project with the right manufacturer from a broad production network.
But in the beginning, there were only two founders, a complex product to build, and a new business model to prove.
Infrastructure was not where they wanted to spend their limited engineering capacity.
The decision: Zero DevOps
Christopher already knew Parse from previous projects. He also knew what it meant to run servers himself.
It could be done. But every hour spent maintaining infrastructure was an hour not spent building FACTUREE.
So the team made a deliberate choice.
Internally, they called it a "Zero DevOps" policy: keep infrastructure work to a minimum and put all engineering effort into the product and the business.
FACTUREE joined SashiDo on February 14, 2018. At that time, its development team consisted of the two co-founders.
SashiDo took care of the managed Parse Server backend and everything that comes with running it in production, so FACTUREE didn't have to.
For Christopher, the impact of that decision went far beyond convenience:
"Our business success would not have been possible without SashiDo. In the beginning, we could focus entirely on what mattered, building the product, without worrying about infrastructure." - Christopher Walzel, Co-founder and CPO of FACTUREE
Photo: FACTUREE
That became the foundation of an eight-year relationship.
What FACTUREE built instead
Over the following years, FACTUREE expanded its manufacturing network, entered new industries and markets, and turned an early-stage idea into a European manufacturing platform.
By 2023, FACTUREE's Online Manufacturing model had also earned significant industry recognition: the company won the INDUSTRIE 4.0 AWARD 2023 in the Manufacturing Platform category. At that point, FACTUREE was serving customers including Siemens, Parker Hannifin, and CERN, and generating eight-figure revenue without outside investors.
Today, FACTUREE's network includes more than 2,000 manufacturing partners and approximately 15,000 machines, covering processes from CNC machining and sheet metal processing to 3D printing, casting, injection molding, and surface technology.
The company serves more than 30,000 customers across Europe, primarily industrial SMEs in sectors including mechanical engineering, medical technology, robotics, automotive, aerospace, and others.
And the two-person founding team has grown into a team of more than 60 people.
Photo: FACTUREE
Eight years of partnership
Meanwhile, on the backend, as FACTUREE expanded, so did its infrastructure needs. SashiDo continued to support the company through each stage of its growth, and what began as conventional platform support developed into a close working relationship between the two teams.
Looking back, Christopher highlighted three things that remained valuable throughout that journey: removing infrastructure work, reliability, and access to the people behind the SashiDo.
"It was backend as a service at its best, because it solved a huge problem for us in the beginning. Then, of course, stability: SashiDo has been extremely reliable over the years. And the customer support was really valuable. We always felt in good hands."
Then the constraint changed
By 2026, FACTUREE's needs had changed. What began as a two-person company had grown into an established organization with its own engineering team. The company had effectively reached the opposite side of its original Zero DevOps decision.
On the other hand, back in 2018, abstraction created leverage. The priority had been to avoid spending scarce engineering resources on infrastructure. Eight years later, FACTUREE was ready for greater architectural control as this was the new leverage.
Photo: FACTUREE
The company decided to move its production environment to its own infrastructure and take direct ownership of the infrastructure supporting the next stage of the company.
The transition was quite smooth, supported by SashiDo's no vendor lock-in approach. FACTUREE retained ownership of its application and data and could move them to its new infrastructure when the time came.
For Christopher, outgrowing the original setup was not a failure of that decision. It was proof of what had happened since making it.
"The good thing is that you only outgrow something if you grow. In the end, we built a successful company, and I think it's great that SashiDo helps companies grow that way."
From Zero DevOps to the next chapter
FACTUREE enters its next chapter with a growing team of more than 60 people, a network of more than 2,000 manufacturing partners, and tens of thousands of customers accross Europe.
After introducing the AI-supported FACTUREE Navigator in 2025, the company plans to integrate AI more deeply into its platform and procurement processes, while continuing to expand its services and geographical presence.
As Christopher explains:
"In 2026, we want to expand the use of artificial intelligence even more and thus further simplify procurement processes for buyers and engineers."
Looking back on the eight-year partnership, Christopher shared one final reflection:
"It's been a great journey. You have been incredibly helpful, and we had a great team. We could always rely on you, even when the sea was rough."
For SashiDo, the end of FACTUREE's infrastructure chapter is not the opposite of a success story. It is part of the success story and it’s worth celebrating.
Eight years ago, FACTUREE needed a partner to take infrastructure off its shoulders. Today, it has grown into a company ready to take it into its own hands.
Success isn't about keeping a customer forever. Sometimes it's about helping them build and grow, without locking them in when they're ready for what comes next.
And to the solo builders and small teams just getting started today: maybe eight years from now, we'll be telling your success story next. 🙂
