How Foundry Lab Transferred Their Key Builder to Austin

"Huge thanks to Concord, the petition must've been incredibly thorough because the officer barely asked us a single question before approving it."

Cameron Robertson

Lead Engineer @ Foundry Lab

Overview

Foundry Lab is reinventing metal casting from the ground up. Their Digital Metal Casting platform combines 3D printing, microwave furnace technology, and precision casting to let manufacturers go from CAD to production-ready metal parts in hours instead of weeks, a transformational shift for hardware, automotive, and industrial teams. Backed by an exceptional group of investors including Blackbird, Founders Fund, GD1 (Global From One), Promus Ventures, and WNT Ventures, the company is led by founder David Moodie.

Cameron Robertson has been at the heart of Foundry Lab's engineering effort, helping design and build the very machines that power the platform. When the company was ready to expand commercially into the United States and open operations out of Austin, Texas, there was no question about who should lead it, the engineer who built the technology needed to be the one running it on the ground.

But transferring a key technical team member from New Zealand to the US is never as simple as booking a flight.

Challenge

Proving Specialised Knowledge for a Proprietary Technology

The L-1B visa is designed for intracompany transfers of employees with specialised knowledge, but the bar for "specialised" is high. USCIS expects detailed evidence that the employee possesses knowledge of the company's products, processes, or procedures that isn't readily available in the US labour market. For Foundry Lab, this meant documenting Cameron's deep expertise in a proprietary technology stack that combines multiple engineering disciplines in ways no other company does.

A 200-Page Petition for a Complex Case

This wasn't a straightforward transfer of a software engineer between offices. Cameron's role sits at the intersection of hardware engineering, advanced manufacturing, and a completely novel casting process. The petition required exhaustive documentation — training records, technical specifications, evidence of specialised processes — ultimately running to over 200 pages. Every page needed to build the case that Cameron's knowledge was genuinely irreplaceable.

Getting the Corporate Structure Right

Foundry Lab operates across multiple entities, the parent company in New Zealand and a US subsidiary. The L-1B requires a qualifying relationship between the sending and receiving organisations, and determining the right petitioner (Foundry Lab NZ vs Foundry Lab USA) and assembling the supporting corporate documentation added another layer of complexity to an already dense application.

High Stakes for the Business

Foundry Lab's US expansion wasn't a speculative bet, it was a commercial priority backed by world-class investors. Having their lead engineer stuck in New Zealand while the Austin operation needed to get up and running would have delayed the company's growth plans at a critical moment.

The Turning Point: Building an Airtight Case with Concord

Concord understood that the strength of an L-1B petition lives or dies in the evidence. The team worked closely with Cameron and Foundry Lab to build a case that left nothing to chance.

The 200-page petition was assembled methodically, mapping Cameron's technical training, his hands-on involvement in developing Foundry Lab's proprietary systems, and the specialised knowledge he carried that couldn't be replicated by hiring locally in the US. Concord also navigated the corporate structuring questions, ensuring the qualifying relationship between the NZ and US entities was documented correctly.

Cameron was described by the Concord team as the most responsive client they'd worked with, a factor that made a real difference in a case this documentation-heavy. When the petition required detailed technical evidence and training records, Cameron delivered quickly and thoroughly every time.

"Massive thank you to Concord Visa for the terrific job they have done getting Cam's visa, a smooth process for such a complex task. If you are looking at transferring staff to a US office we can highly recommend Kevin Park and his team."

Foundry Lab

The Outcome

Cameron's L-1B was approved, and the consular interview confirmed just how well-prepared the petition was. The officer barely asked a single question before approving it.

Cameron has now relocated to Austin, where he's leading Foundry Lab's commercial expansion into the US, managing the foundry service and running the very machines he helped design and build. For a company that's turning a bold idea into a category-defining technology, having their key engineer on the ground in their biggest growth market was non-negotiable.

As Foundry Lab's team put it at Cameron's leaving drinks in New Zealand: see you very soon, Cam.