Foundation Alloy has raised $22 million in its Series A financing round as the company looks to scale its MetalsFIRST metallurgy technology platform to industrial volumes.
MetalsFIRST is a fully integrated, solid-state platform that encompasses composition design, mechanical alloying, shape forming, and sintering. It is said to produce engineered alloys without ever entering the molten state, with Foundation Alloy suggesting the process enables faster and simpler manufacturing cycles, while opening up access to alloy compositions and properties impossible to achieve with legacy melt processes.
The company’s Molyclast MC1200 molybdenum alloy, Foundation Alloy claims, is 3x stronger than commercial alternatives, with its ‘superior manufacturability and superior performance’ unlocking new capabilities in the industrial markets.
Foundation Alloy has developed and commercialised its MetalsFIRST platform in a bid to address the ‘energy-intensive and slow’ melt-based metal alloy development methods. In some spaces, like defence, specific alloys are running 900-day lead times, keeping aircraft on the ground and constraining the rebuilding of defence stockpiles.
This Series A financing, then, will be harnessed to a MetalsFIRST scale-up in a bid to address such industry challenges. Later this year, the company will open a new 36,000 square-foot facility in Massachusetts, standing up an additional modular production cell with Re:Build Manufacturing in southern New Hampshire, and doubling headcount across production, engineering, and commercial operations.
According to Foundation Alloy, its Molyclast family of molybdenum alloys is being used across hot forging, die casting, and high-temperature applications. The company is also said to be expanding into iron-based alloys, including stainless, tool, and high-performance specialty steels, with multiple customer pilot programs ongoing. Here, Foundation Alloy is targeting cutting tools and blades in the near-term, with aerospace components, defence systems, and next-generation energy technologies considered longer-term application opportunities. The company is also working with LIFT, the Department of War-supported national advanced materials and manufacturing innovation institute.
“Metals made through our platform are being used by customers today in commercial pilots with Japanese industrials, in production trials across North America and Europe, and in forging demonstrations with LIFT in Detroit,” said Foundation Alloy CEO Jake Guglin. “This Series A funds the factory, not the lab. Our new Massachusetts facility and modular production cell are set to grow capacity from pilot-scale today to tons per week by 2027 – a 100x+ increase, built on a modular equipment platform that deploys and scales 10x faster than traditional metals manufacturing. We’re hiring across production, engineering, and commercial teams to help meet surging demand in defence, advanced manufacturing, and energy, where legacy materials and supply chains are failing. Our team is uniquely positioned to solve these challenges right now.”
“The Department of War Manufacturing Innovation Institute’s core mission is to accelerate transformational technology into the US industrial base and to support the successful scale-up of those innovations,” added Nigel Francis, CEO and Executive Director of LIFT. “We are tremendously proud to see that vision realised with Foundation Alloy and this important Series A funding. Our testbed and pilot plant facility in Detroit played a pivotal role in testing and demonstrating Foundation Alloy’s novel technology, helping to lay the foundation for this next phase of growth – right here in the United States.”
The Series A round was led by Voyager Ventures, with participation from Trust Ventures, Yamaha Motors, America’s Frontier Fund, Overlap Holdings, Material Impact, Engine Ventures, and El Cap. An additional investment was made by Japanese trading house Kanematsu Corporation, which also signed a definitive distribution partnership.
"Foundation Alloy's platform addresses the most persistent challenges our customers face – productivity, equipment utilisation, and supply-chain reliability—through a fundamentally different production approach," said Kenyu Okawara, General Manager, Kanematsu Corporation. "Client companies across our network are already evaluating Foundation Alloy's materials for high-demand applications, and we look forward to delivering these next-generation alloys to manufacturers across Japan and Asia as part of our solution-oriented approach to the metals business. We see the potential for hundreds of millions of dollars of demand for these materials across Japan and Southeast Asia in the coming years."
“Aerospace, defence, energy, and precision manufacturing need alloys that are stronger, cheaper, and faster to produce than anything available today. Foundation Alloy delivers this leap forward with metals engineered at the atomic level through its MetalsFIRST platform. Voyager is proud to back this team as they redefine metals and manufacturing, all made in America,” added Sarah Sclarsic, founder and Managing Partner at Voyager Ventures.
