Freeform raises $67 million Series B to expand AI laser manufacturing

Technology investors have not given up on the dream of making physical products as quickly and easily as programming software.

Executives at Freeform, a startup developing a new 3D printing system for metal components, told TechCrunch that the company has raised a $67 million Series B round to expand its manufacturing platform.

Investors include Apandion, AE Ventures, Founders Fund, Linse Capital, NVidia’s NVitures, Threshold Ventures, and Two Sigma Ventures. FreeForm declined to disclose the company’s post-funding valuation, which Pitchbook indicates is $179 million.

Eric Balich, CEO and co-founder, said the funding will allow the company to upgrade its existing GoldenEye printing system, which uses 18 lasers to fuse metal powders into precise components, to a new version. The next version of the platform, called Skyfall, will use hundreds of lasers to produce thousands of kilograms of metal parts every day.

This is the culmination of a vision launched by Palich and co-founder/president Thomas Runacher in 2018. The two met while developing rocket engines at SpaceX, where they found that industrial machinery for printing metal components was expensive, difficult, and poorly designed for mass manufacturing.

Their new company will build their platform from the ground up for higher productivity and flexibility, with an emphasis on active software controls. Freeform’s platform is “AI-driven,” Palich says, pointing to a partnership with Nvidia that allows the company access to advanced GPUs.

“I think we’re the only manufacturer with unquote quotes that has H200 clusters in an on-site data center,” Paltisch told TechCrunch. “What do they do? We run real-time physics-based simulations and learn all the different aspects of the manufacturing workflow from start to finish.”

Data collected by sensors in the company’s manufacturing platform and during simulations allows Freeform to quickly improve the quality and quantity of production.

“We have more meaningful data on the physics of the metal printing process than any company in the world,” said Cameron Kaye, Head of Talent.

While Balic said he couldn’t disclose any customers, he said the company is already delivering hundreds of “mission-critical” parts to buyers. Now, the company wants to hire up to 100 new employees and expand its facilities to begin execution on its backlog of contracts.

Manufacturing as a service has grown as a category as venture investors show greater interest in building vehicles, robotics, and energy production systems. For example, Hadrian recently received a $1.6 billion valuation from its investors while developing automated defense production, and VulcanForms and Divergent have raised hundreds of millions to develop their own metal printing services.