OC REGISTER’S TOP PICKS FOR IRVINE’S FIVE COOLEST COMPANIES
IRVINE, CA – (February 4, 2013) – In an attempt to highlight a handful of Irvine’s best and brightest businesses that may not have the largest brand name recognition, Kimberly Pierceall, a reporter for the OC Register, explains that the city has no shortage of entrepreneurial activity. Furthermore, she features five cool companies in Irvine on the front page of the Irvine World News of the OC Register, and you guessed it – Purple Platypus was one of them. Here’s what she had to say about the man behind the Purple Platypus.
Back story: First things first – what’s with the name? David Cox, the company’s founder and president/CEO, said most of the company names he encountered in some 10 years in the 3D printing industry were forgettable.
“I wanted to name it something people would remember,” he said. And it’s hard to forget the company’s logo – a serious, tie-wearing platypus with a purple hue – as well as the mascot for the company’s division that does the printing itself, Purple Porcupine, which is – you guessed it – a purple porcupine wearing a bowtie.
The printers his company sells can cost $10,000 to $600,000. If his company prints something for someone else, it comes with a minimum $150 charge and can cost up to $40,000 in some cases depending on how many items are printed.
Cox, a preferred reseller of 3D printers from the now merged Objet and Stratasys companies, started the company in his Costa Mesa garage five years ago after he was a sales rep for three years.
He moved the company to Irvine from Santa Ana in May 2012 and is now surrounded by potential customers, namely design firms and research and development departments for some of the world’s biggest brand names.
What’s cool about the company: When the special effects designers behind the big screen story of Iron Man needed a more convincing glove, they used machines sold to them by Purple Platypus to print one, wearable, in one piece. Seen a rubber smart phone case recently? It likely came from a 3D printer. The smartphone itself – at least in the case of Apple’s iPhone – was first sculpted as a prototype with the machines. Invisalign braces? Yup, printed on a 3D printer. Imagine an inkjet printer that lays layers of resin (one on top of the other) rather than ink or a glue gun that coils wire lengths of plastic with precision into identifiable three-dimensional items. Among the printers the company sells are ones that can print a solid object that can stand some three feet tall.
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For more information about Purple Platypus, visit their website at www.purpleplatypus.com, or call 949.474.9222.
