Four years ago, specialty chemical and advanced materials developer Arkema announced that it would increase its focus on 3D printing materials research; this was followed two years later by a major investment plan, together with its advanced liquid resin solutions subsidiary Sartomer, for advanced 3D printing materials. The company, which operates in nearly 55 countries around the world, continues its materials focus today, and is partnering up with Silicon Valley-based company Carbon to help increase adoption of digital manufacturing and deliver a new supply chain model and cycle of materials performance for Carbon’s manufacturing partners.
“Since Carbon’s early days, Arkema has been an important partner to us,” said the CEO and Co-Founder of Carbon, Dr. Joseph DeSimone. “It’s rewarding to see all the amazing outcomes of our work together over the years bringing new, innovative materials to market.”
Using its innovative Digital Light Synthesis (DLS) technology, which is enabled by its proprietary CLIP process, Carbon is working to reinvent how we design, engineer, and manufacture polymer products, such as automotive and mobile protection solutions, parts for medical devices, shoes, and even blender nozzles. Since it was founded, the company has shared a similar goal with Sartomer – to drive innovation in order to scale resin manufacturing and process technology, so that DLS 3D printed parts can be more cost-competitive and reliable.
Thierry Le Hénaff, the Chairman and CEO of Arkema, said, “We are eager to continue and strengthen our joint efforts in delivering Carbon next generation products and full solutions to our partners & customers, disrupting the way parts are mass manufactured and accelerating new market opportunities.”
Through this new strategic partnership between Carbon and Arkema’s Sartomer business line, which was announced through an investment in the startup’s capital, the two companies will help disrupt the existing supply chain model, deliver new technologies to help bring digital manufacturing more into the mainstream, and deliver advanced materials.
As additive manufacturing continues to advance and mature, we will keep seeing the way that products are designed and fabricated change across industries…and partnerships like this one between Arkema and Carbon are at the forefront of these changes. Already, their collaboration has been responsible for creating some, according to a press release issued about the partnership, “holistic solutions” that are changing things up in the consumer goods, dental, and sporting markets.
Earlier this week, Carbon announced that it had received $260 million in additional investments after a round of growth funding; one of the participants in this round was Arkema, which invested $20 million in Carbon’s Growth Funding Round. This funding will help Carbon support its next generation of integrated digital manufacturing platforms, solutions, and materials. As the two companies have a similar vision for the AM industry, their growing partnership is a great way for them to use advanced materials technology to grow their collective pipelines of production applications.
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