US-based metal 3D printer producer Desktop Metal completed a $65m financing round led by automotive manufacturer Ford Motor Company yesterday that included the Australian state-owned Future Fund.
Founded in 2015, Desktop Metal develops and sells systems capable of printing 3D metal parts for prototyping, and is working on a generative design tool called Live Parts.
The company claims its office-accessible Studio System is 10 times cheaper than rival products, and that its Production System can mass produce parts 100 times more quickly than laser-based additive manufacturing machines.
Ken Washington, Ford’s chief technology officer and vice-president of research and advanced engineering, will take a board seat at Desktop Metal in conjunction with its investment.
Ford was already experimenting with using 3D printing to form large-scale car parts like spoilers using a 3D printer developed by another company, Stratasys, and it already operates its own 3D printing lab and a series of prototyping centres in the US and Europe.
Ric Fulop, Desktop Metal’s co-founder and CEO, said: “The age of metal 3D manufacturing is here and this strategic partnership with Ford, along with our portfolio of investors, validates our vision to transform the way metal parts will be designed and mass produced.
“The continued support of our investors underscores the power of our metal 3D printing solutions to help engineers and manufacturers, for the first time, apply metal 3D printing for the entire product development lifecycle – from prototyping to mass producing complex, high performance metal parts in a cost-effective way.”
Desktop Metal has now raised a total of $277m in funding, having closed a $115m series D round in July 2017 featuring petroleum supplier Saudi Aramco, retailer Lowe’s, home product maker Techtronic Industries, industrial technology producer GE and internet technology group Alphabet that reportedly valued it at just over $1bn.
The series D round also included New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Future Fund, Lux Capital, Moonrise Venture Partners, DCVC Opportunity, Tyche Partners, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), Shenzhen Capital Group and Vertex Ventures.
Stratasys invested in Desktop Metal’s 2015 series A round, sized at $14m, alongside NEA, Lux Capital, KPCB, Founder Collective, Data Collective, Bolt and various angel investors.
Corporate venturing units GE Ventures and Saudi Aramco Ventures added an undisclosed sum in mid-2016 to the $33.8m the company had raised earlier in the year.
Desktop Metal secured $45m in February 2017 from GV, Lowe’s Ventures and BMW i Ventures, subsidiaries of Alphabet, Lowe’s and automotive manufacturer BMW respectively, at a $340m valuation.
– Photo courtesy of Desktop Metal, Inc.