Fabric8Labs
Fabric8Labs, an electrochemical additive manufacturing company, has announced the close of a 50 million USD Series B investment round led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA).
Existing investors, including Intel Capital, imec.XPAND, SE Ventures, TDK Ventures, and Lam Capital, also participated in the round.
The new injection of capital will be used to scale the company’s proprietary Electrochemical Additive Manufacturing (ECAM) technology and establish a pilot production facility.
“We are thrilled to have NEA’s support in executing our vision,” said Jeff Herman, Fabric8Labs CEO and co-founder. “It is critical to have partners that are aligned with our mission to fundamentally shift manufacturing with a sustainable, additive manufacturing approach; and we have been fortunate enough to surround ourselves with a team of top tier investors.”
The ECAM process differs from traditional metal 3D printing as it builds at the atomic level from a water-based feedstock containing dissolved metal ions. Fabric8Labs says that this approach allows for micron-scale feature resolution, complex internal features, high-purity materials, and rapid scalability to support mass manufacturing.
According to the company, ECAM is uniquely suited to produce ‘ultra-high’ resolution, pure copper components, which can be directly printed onto temperature sensitive substrates such as PCBs, silicon, or existing metal components.
The capability comes at a time when electronics companies are seeking enabling technologies to address challenges with thermal management, power density, device form factor, and sustainability, according to Fabric8Labs.
Fabric8Labs
The company says that ECAM is also useful for optimising designs to meet and exceed performance requirements in end-applications such as high-performance computing (HPC), data centres, electric vehicles, wearables, RF communications, and a range of consumer electronics products.
“The potential of Fabric8Labs’ novel technology is undeniable, and we believe ECAM is suited to support a wide range of applications across the electronics value chain,” said Jennifer Ard, Managing Director at Intel Capital. “As the team works to scale their offerings, they’ll be able to deliver value across multiple business units for customers, furthering their value-add.”
In addition to enabling advancements in electronics, Fabric8Labs is working on developing medical device applications and micro-mechanical components. ECAM allows for the applications to have ‘extremely fine, complex features’ and high performance allots, according to the Fabric8Labs. The company says that as it scales, ECAM will enable applications that require ultra-high resolution, such as advanced surgical tools, sensors, diagnostic equipment, and MEMs.
“ECAM stands out as truly differentiated among the sea of approaches to additive manufacturing,” said Greg Papadopoulos, PhD., Venture Partner at NEA. “You can avoid expensive post-processing, easily build complex things at micron-scale, print directly on your existing substrates, and do all of this at scale with, by far, the lowest energy, and thus carbon footprint. We’re thrilled to partner with Jeff and the Fabric8Labs team on this revolution for additive manufacturing.”
Fabric8Labs says that beyond providing manufacturing capabilities that advance customers’ technology roadmaps, ECAM is 'environmentally sustainable and supports green initiatives.' The company claims that ECAM enables more than a 90% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions relative to alternative 3D printing technologies and traditional manufacturing.
TCT reported on Fabric8Labs in 2021 after it closed a Series A financing round of 19.3 million USD.
