VulcanForms
MIT-born metal additive manufacturing firm VulcanForms has announced 355 million USD in funding, while also opening its first two digital production facilities.
The company is said to be valued at over 1 billion USD, with investment coming from the likes of Eclipse Ventures, Stata Venture Partners, Fontinalis Partners, D1 Capital Partners, Standard Investments, Atlas Innovate, Boston Seed Capital, Industry Ventures, and the Simkins Family. Its two initial production facilities are based in Devens, MA and Newburyport, MA and capture ‘the full value chain for precision metals components and assemblies,’ per VulcanForms.
VulcanForms has been founded to help manufacturers shift away from overseas manufacturing with the use of metal additive manufacturing. To support this mission, its Devens facility houses a fleet of VulcanForms powder bed fusion systems, which are equipped with proprietary 100-kilowatt lasers that make up over 2 megawatts of laser capacity. The Newburyport facility, meanwhile, focuses on automated precision machining and assembly, with these technology suites merging with a digital thread to offer what VulcanForms believes is a ‘groundbreaking manufacturing infrastructure.’
Customers of VulcanForms operate in the aviation, space, defence, medical and semiconductor industries, with the company supplying over a dozen US Department of Defense programmes – including the F35 Joint Strike Fighter and Patriot Air Defense System – and having delivered thousands of parts to the semiconductor space.
“By scaling advanced digital manufacturing, we can create a new era of US Innovation and economic growth,” commented Martin C. Feldmann, VulcanForms co-founder, President and CEO. “We’ve recognised a game-changing opportunity when additive manufacturing technology is scaled for industrial production and is seamlessly integrated with automated machining and robotics. VulcanForms has built the physical infrastructure and digital workflows to deliver this full-stack manufacturing solution at unprecedented speed, precision, quality and scale. Our technologies combined with our team of engineering and operations leaders from Google, General Electric, Pratt & Whitney, Precision Castparts, IGP Photonics, Faro Technologies, Schlumberger, Alcoa, Autodesk, among others enable our customers to innovate, grow and deliver sustainable impact faster.”
“There is a fundamental shift in the ways manufacturers need to adapt to global supply chain challenges and the increasing demands for product design flexibility,” added Greg Reichow, Partner at Eclipse Ventures and Director of VulcanForms. “VulcanForms’ full stack approach to deliver an engineered solution, combining advanced additive and subtractive technologies merged through a digital thread will revitalise US manufacturing and hardware innovation. The technologies that enable this agile workflow will dramatically impact the way products are imagined, designed, built and delivered for decades to come.”
VulcanForms has made a capital investment exceeding 100m USD in its Devens facility, created 100 new jobs, and deployed advanced simulation, in-process sensing and machine learning technology to ensure the highest level of quality and inspection. The company also boasts heat treatment, precision machining and assembly capabilities, expanding such capabilities with the acquisition of Arwood Machine Corporation in Newburyport, MA.
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