Great Lakes Additive and Inventus Growth Solutions Form Strategic Commercial Growth Partnership

Inventus Growth Solutions will invest its strategy, technology, and commercial development capabilities into Great Lakes Additive, assuming responsibility for key business development infrastructure and technology, market and territory development, and growth operations, while Great Lakes focuses on engineering and manufacturing.

Great Lakes Additive and Inventus Growth Solutions have formed a strategic commercial growth partnership designed to build the infrastructure, market presence, and business development capabilities required to support the next stage of Great Lakes Additive's growth.

Under the partnership, Inventus Growth Solutions will serve as an embedded commercial growth partner to Great Lakes Additive, taking an active role in the company's go-to-market strategy, business technology, digital infrastructure, market and territory development, demand generation, commercial systems and growth operations.

Great Lakes Additive will remain focused on what it does best: engineering, reverse engineering, additive manufacturing, production and serving its customers.

The partnership represents more than a traditional consulting or marketing engagement.

Inventus is making a strategic investment in the growth of Great Lakes Additive by deploying its resources, systems and commercial expertise alongside the company with the goal of building a scalable commercial engine around Great Lakes Additive's manufacturing capabilities.

“We don't want Great Lakes spending its time trying to become a marketing agency, technology company, or outsourced sales organization,” said Anthony Galizia, Founder of Inventus Growth Solutions. “Their job is to become exceptional at manufacturing. Our job is to build the commercial infrastructure around them that makes sure the market knows what they're capable of, the right companies are being approached, opportunities are being developed, and the business is prepared to grow.”

Building the Business Around the Manufacturing Operation

Great Lakes Additive provides additive manufacturing, 3D scanning, reverse engineering and production capabilities for companies requiring custom, difficult-to-source and specialized components.



Like many technically capable manufacturers, however, expanding the manufacturing operation requires more than additional production capacity.

It requires a commercial system capable of identifying where the company's capabilities have the greatest value and consistently bringing those capabilities to market.

That is where Inventus will operate.

The partnership is designed around a simple division of responsibility:

Great Lakes Additive builds the manufacturing operation. Inventus builds the commercial engine around it.

Inventus' role is expected to encompass several areas of the business, including:

• Go-to-market and commercialization strategy
• Market research and opportunity identification
• Market and territory development
• Business development infrastructure
• CRM and commercial technology
• Website and digital infrastructure
• Customer acquisition systems
• Sales enablement and commercial processes
• Demand generation
• Data and performance reporting
• Brand positioning and communications
• Account-development strategy
• Commercial operations and growth planning

Rather than engaging separate vendors for each function, Great Lakes Additive will work with Inventus as an integrated commercial partner responsible for connecting those functions into one growth system.

Starting With the Market

The first phase of the partnership will begin with an intensive Commercial Go-to-Market Sprint.

Before significantly expanding advertising, outbound sales, or other customer-acquisition activities, Inventus will evaluate Great Lakes Additive's existing capabilities, capacity, economics, historical projects, customer base, and potential markets.

The objective is to answer several fundamental questions.

Where does Great Lakes Additive have the strongest competitive opportunity?

Which industries and companies experience problems that its capabilities are particularly well positioned to solve?

Who are the buyers inside those organizations?

Which services and use cases should lead the commercial conversation?

And what infrastructure must exist to turn those conversations into RFQs, opportunities, customers, and recurring accounts?

The findings will be used to create a Commercial GTM Blueprint that will guide subsequent infrastructure development and market expansion.

From Capability to Commercial Opportunity

One area the companies expect to explore is the intersection of additive manufacturing and difficult-to-source industrial components.

Manufacturers, equipment operators, and engineering teams can encounter situations where a component is obsolete, unavailable, subject to long lead times, or uneconomical to reproduce through traditional manufacturing methods.

Great Lakes Additive's combination of scanning, reverse engineering, and additive manufacturing creates an opportunity to evaluate where those problems can be addressed through a more integrated process.

The potential commercial model extends beyond simply printing a part.

A component can potentially move through a lifecycle of:

Identify → Scan → Reverse Engineer → Validate → Produce → Digitally Retain → Reproduce On Demand With a True 24/7 Lights Out Additive Manufacturing Facility

Inventus will work with Great Lakes Additive to determine where that model and other potential applications represent viable commercial opportunities.

The companies will prioritize evidence over assumptions as markets and offers are evaluated.

A Different Kind of Growth Partnership

The Great Lakes Additive engagement also represents the type of relationship Inventus Growth Solutions was created to pursue.

Rather than remaining outside the business and delivering recommendations, Inventus intends to become deeply involved in building and operating the systems responsible for commercial growth.

That can mean sitting between strategy and execution.

Inventus may identify a market opportunity, determine the ideal customer profile, build the database of companies operating within that market, create the sales infrastructure required to manage those accounts, develop the digital experience supporting the offer and then participate directly in developing those commercial relationships.

For Great Lakes Additive, the model provides access to a broader commercial growth function without requiring the company to immediately build every capability internally.

For Inventus, the partnership creates an opportunity to demonstrate what can happen when commercial strategy, technology, demand generation and business development are developed together rather than purchased as disconnected services.

“We're putting our resources behind this company because we believe there is something worth building here,” Anthony Galizia said.

“We're going to research the markets, challenge assumptions, build the infrastructure, and help develop the opportunities. Great Lakes can keep its attention where it belongs, on engineering, manufacturing, quality, and fulfilling the work that comes through the door.”

Building Infrastructure Before Scaling Demand

A central principle of the partnership will be building the commercial infrastructure necessary to support growth before aggressively scaling customer acquisition.

That includes establishing systems for tracking where opportunities originate, how prospects move through the sales process, which markets generate qualified RFQs, how quotes convert into customers, and which accounts develop into recurring revenue.

Inventus will also work to modernize the digital infrastructure surrounding the business, including the systems used to manage customer relationships, capture inquiries, support sales conversations, measure performance, and communicate Great Lakes Additive's capabilities to the market.

This infrastructure is intended to give both organizations something increasingly important as the partnership develops:

evidence.

Instead of measuring success by activity alone, the partnership will evaluate qualified conversations, RFQs, pipeline development, new customers, recurring accounts, and ultimately commercial revenue attributable to the systems being built.

Creating a Model for Modern Manufacturing Growth

The partnership also represents a broader thesis for Inventus.

Across the manufacturing sector, technically capable businesses can possess valuable equipment, expertise, and production capabilities without having an equally developed commercial organization surrounding them.

Inventus believes that this creates an opportunity for a new kind of partnership.

Rather than asking manufacturers to become experts in marketing technology, CRM systems, demand generation, market research, outbound sales, and digital strategy, an embedded commercial partner can build and operate those capabilities alongside the manufacturer.

The manufacturer concentrates on making.

The commercial partner concentrates on creating and developing the market around what can be made.



Great Lakes Additive will serve as one of the first companies where Inventus applies and documents that model comprehensively.

What Comes Next

Work under the partnership has already begun.

Inventus and Great Lakes Additive will initially focus on commercial discovery, capability analysis, market research, customer segmentation, and go-to-market architecture.

From there, the companies expect to move into commercial infrastructure development followed by active market and territory development.

As the partnership progresses, Inventus and Great Lakes Additive plan to document the transformation and share meaningful milestones, lessons, and commercial results as they are achieved.

The goal is not simply to generate more activity.

It is to build a repeatable system capable of turning manufacturing capability into market opportunity—and market opportunity into sustainable growth.

Great Lakes Additive will focus on building what's needed.



Inventus Growth Solutions will focus on making sure the right market can find it.