Small Business Loan Program
Partner lender: Vermont Federal Credit Union
Rigorous Technology is an industrial robotics company that serves two main functions — custom research and development, and production.
This means if a client says, “Hey, I have a problem,” the business’ staff will work to automate and solve it, designing an answer in a world where one doesn't already exist. This is how the company got off the ground. Just this year, the product division came to be, taking the ideas it developed and making them into tangible items.
COO and co-founder Diane Abruzzini Riggs runs business operations, putting her background in ag and small business management to new uses. Her co-founder, Colin Riggs, worked for fellow Vermont company, Greensea Systems, before venturing out on his own and moving from water to land.
Just as Rigorous works to eliminate risk for its clients, when the time came to seek out financing, VEDA’s model had immediate appeal. This was important, as the company began in 2020… January to be specific, just before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold.
In 2021 Diane became full-time with Rigorous and the company hired its first other employee. It was working on full-system development and, last year, expanded by putting its first product — the box hopper — out into the world of corrugated box manufacturing.
“The Vermont business community has been really supportive of us, and I don’t think we could be where we are today without that,” Abruzzini Riggs said.
This is true for VEDA, too. Abruzzini Riggs met Cassie Polhemus, VEDA CEO, through their mutual membership on f the Advisory Board of VCET — Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies. Polhemus, upon chatting with Abruzzini Riggs, offered to introduce her to a loan officer, just to talk through opportunities.
“We had an exploratory conversation,” Abruzzini Riggs said, “And then we realized soon after that we had to find a commercial space.”
Given the brutality of the Vermont real estate landscape, the need to find a specifc space to fit its specific needs, creativity was key. Rigorous needed enough space for full robotic systems, it needed to keep costs as low as possible. So, Abruzzini Riggs said, cold-calling and public records searching for industrial property owners in Chittenden County was the answer.
On the second phone call, someone picked up. “You know what? Today might be your lucky day,” the voice on the other end of the line said — a building was likely to become available.
That connection was invaluable. It was perfect. But it had to be bought in an as-is state, meaning Rigorous would be responsible for any renovations needed. “We had not lined up financing at this point because we thought this whole process would have taken a little bit longer,” she said.
Quickly entering a lease so as not to lose the space, Rigorous used another connection — the one with VEDA — to reach the next step. “I think we rented starting in March and we closed in June,” Abruzzini Riggs said. There was three months to get the loan in place, all the while selling of the building’s old equipment and renovating, creating two units, one to use and one to rent out. “It all worked out, and when I look back on it, I think that it’s probably the riskiest financial decision I’ve ever made; to renovate someone else’s building before I knew that I could own it.”
But it did work out — and Rigorous has been steadily growing ever since, from a team of three to now 11. Without access to that space, none of it would have been possible. VEDA’s help in preparing the loan application was a huge part of the process’ success, Abruzzini Riggs said, business plans and financial projections were in in place, but weren’t necessarily the right format for the traditional lending structure.
“The process of working with VEDA and Vermont Small Business Development Center advisors helped us better prepare financially,” she said.
Luckily, VEDA was flexible. Abruzzini Riggs said. In collaboration with Vermont Federal Credit Union, “They were completely open to saying, ‘Show up wherever you’re at, and we’ll help you get there.’ It was a lot of back and forth, and it felt like a real collaboration where they wanted to help, they wanted to be a part of us.”
Without that relationship, she said, things would be so different from where they are today. The VEDA team has toured the facility, seen the robots in action and supported the founders’ vision for growth and creation of high paying jobs in Vermont.
