| Type: | Private |
| RPD International | |
| Location: | London, Shenzhen, Amsterdam |
| Key People: | Josh Valman - CEO, Jacelyn Meller - CCO |
| Area Served: | Worldwide |
| Industry: | Professional services |
| Products: | Product Design & Manufacturing |
| Homepage: | rpdintl.com |
RPD International (Rapid Product Development) is a design and manufacturing firm founded in 2012 by a British entrepreneur, Josh Valman. It collaborates with companies to design and manufacture new products.
It operates a global supply chain to develop and launch new products in the consumer electronics, consumer medical, and consumer goods industries.[1] It works with clients such as Unilever, GSK and Vodafone.[2] It also runs a program known as Accelerate. This program focuses on helping startups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) launch new products and compete with larger businesses in manufacturing.[3]
RPD was founded in 2012 to simplify the process of developing new products, particularly in startup-scale supply chain.[4] [5]
It was sold to Kinara International and rebranded as RPDK in 2023.
Since March 2017, it also competes in Robot Wars with a robot named Rapid.
In Series 9 of the BBC Series, Robot Wars, Rapid suffered a mechanical fault and withdrew from the competition.[6]
It returned to Robot Wars in series 10, reaching the final episode.[7] Rapid was beaten by the previous year's winner, Carbide, suffering significant damage resulting in a large lithium fire.[8] [9]