Researchers from the Department of Forest Biomaterials at the University of Freiburg (UCF) have developed a novel environmentally-friendly wood-based 3D printing material. The team, headed by UCF’s Professor Marie-Pierre Laborie, combined lignin, a chemical that provides strength to plant cell walls, with cellulose balls to create a novel biosynthetic polymer. As Lignen is produced endlessly […]
Equispheres raises $30 million in Series B funding
Equispheres, the Canadian additive manufacturing powder producer, has announced that it has raised $30 million (CDN) in Series B investment. The funding round was led by advanced materials and sustainable technology investor, HG Ventures, the firm’s first foray into additive manufacturing. Government agency Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) and federal bank Business Development Bank of […]
Equispheres Secures $30 Million in New Funding Round
Canadian materials science company Equispheres, which specializes in aluminum alloy powder for 3D printing, announced this week that it had secured a Series B investment, along with a new $30 million (CDN) investment round.
The funding round, at an undisclosed valuation, was led by HG Ventures, which is the corporate venture arm of The Heritage Group. Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), a government-created foundation to advance clean technology innovation that’s supported the company in the past, and BDC, the only bank in Canada devoted exclusively to entrepreneurs, also participated in the funding round, along with some undisclosed contributors.
Lead funding partner HG Ventures, which invests in and partners with companies working in sustainable technology and advanced materials, contributed $10 million in equity investment to this round of funding, while SDTC added an $8 million grant, which was first announced back in January. BDC contributed $5 million in subordinated financing, and the round was completed with $7 million in undisclosed funding.
Equipsheres’ Doug Brouse informed us that Jonathan Schalliol, VC and Director of HG Ventures, “mentioned on LinkedIn” that the company is a new investor in the additive manufacturing space, and it’s always great to bring new companies into this industry that are excited to be here.
“We are extremely excited to have HG Ventures as a partner, their extraordinary combination of research capability and venture capital experience made them an ideal partner to understand both the technical and market potential of our product across the transportation industry,” stated Kevin Nicholds, President and CEO of Equispheres, in a press release. “We are also grateful to have the support of the Canadian government, enabling us to leverage investor financing to achieve our objective of providing a high-quality product at volume levels the marketplace demands.”
Extreme magnification of Equispheres’ aluminum alloy powders for AM.
This isn’t the first time Equisheres has received major funding for its work in unique metal AM powders. The high performance, mono-sized metal powders it develops can help print parts that are up to 30% stronger and lighter than ones fabricated with other powders. In the last year alone, the company has released two important reports about testing results of its specialty materials, including how it performed in aerospace-ready AM quality tests. With this latest funding, Equispheres can continue testing its powders, and plans to scale up the production capacity, along with investing in research and development partnerships.
Equispheres will be using the funds to focus on several important areas, including creating high quality jobs and hiring and developing new talent, and improving reactors for lower cost and higher volume powder production. In addition, the company will ramp up its R&D projects with new and existing strategic partners, as well as work on creating application support services for the aviation, automotive, defense, and space industries in order to expedite advanced manufacturing opportunities that its metal powders make possible.
Equispheres stated in its press release that “more significant developments are expected on the horizon,” so we should stay tuned to hear what’s coming next.
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3D Printing Industry News SLICED: Rize, 3D Systems, Essentium, Protect3d, Xioneer Systems
In this edition of Sliced, the 3D Printing Industry news digest, we cover the latest partnerships, acquisitions, medical developments and creative applications from across our industry. Additionally, you’ll find out how 3D printing helped to miniaturize the tallest statue in the world; the novel technique used by law enforcers to help keep the Super Bowl […]
Equispheres Receives $8 Million from SDTC to Scale Metal 3D Printing Powder Production
Canadian materials science company Equispheres has just announced that it’s received support, and $8 million in funding, from Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), which it will use to help scale its metal 3D printing powder production capacity over the next two years.
The SDTC foundation was created by the Government of Canada in order to advance clean technology innovation across the country by funding and supporting entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises that are working to develop, demonstrate, and deploy “globally competitive” clean technology solutions.
SDTC believes that Equispheres’ aluminum alloy powder, which was specifically designed for additive manufacturing and optimized for applications in both the aerospace and automotive industries, can help bring about real-world change.
“Canadian cleantech entrepreneurs are tackling problems across Canada and in every sector. I have never been more positive about the future,” stated Leah Lawrence, the President and CEO of SDTC. “Equipsheres as developed a metal powder that acts as ink for 3D printing and enables automotive and aerospace manufacturers to reduce the weight of their products. With Equispheres’ powder set to remove 100 – 200 kg of mass from an automobile, this would be the equivalent to removing 75 million cars off the road!”
Scanning Electron Microscope photo of Equispheres novel powder.
Aerospace and automotive manufacturers alike have the same mission to reduce their products’ carbon footprint, and weight optimization is key. While 3D printing has certainly been used in these industries many times before, it was not always possible to achieve mass production scale with aluminum alloy powders, which is what Equipsheres specializes in. According to a company press release, these materials also “account for a significant amount of the material demand” in both industries, so a powder that can make stronger, more lightweight parts in a more efficient way is hugely important.
Equispheres provides high performance, mono-sized metal powders, which can fabricate parts that are up to 30% stronger and lighter than those made with other AM powders. In addition to more efficient production, part performance has also been positively impacted with these powders – the release states that the company’s AM powder is anticipated to improve fuel efficiency by over 10% in the automotive industry, was “proven exceptional” in tests run by McGill University, and outperformed in aerospace-ready quality tests.
Equisheres has received major funding for its work in AM powders before, but the timing of this particular award from SDTC “aligns well with other initiatives” the company has been working on in regards to offering a clean technology solution in the aerospace and automotive fields. For example, it put together a consortium that includes a top aerospace company and leading automotive manufacturer in order to use the weight optimization potential of the AM powder to its advantage in order to reduce vehicle weight. But this new funding support from SDTC will allow Equispheres to work with even more partners in the aerospace and automotive industries to “help them realize the benefits of more efficient production and reduced emissions.”
Equispheres CEO, Kevin Nicholds
“We are excited to receive this funding award from the SDTC Foundation. This support from SDTC speaks to the importance of our powder technology as a key to achieving significant emissions reductions in the automotive sector,” said Equispheres CEO Kevin Nicholds. “The funding from SDTC will help Equispheres to continue to accelerate our production capacity and support this important work by our automotive partners.”
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3D Printing News Briefs: October 18, 2019
The stories we’re sharing in today’s 3D Printing News Briefs run the gamut from materials to new printers. Altair has launched its new industrial design solution, and Remet opened a metal 3D printing lab in Poland. Innofil3D is sharing lots of material news, and Equispheres has released the test results for a unique 3D printing powder. Finally, Hackaday published a micro 3D printer project.
Altair Launches New Industrial Design and Rendering Solution
The “Geko Ring Collection,” jewelry by Luca Palmini, designed and rendered with Inspire Studio. Image courtesy of Luca Palmini.
Global technology company Altair has launched Inspire Studio, its new 3D design and rendering solution, to help architects, designers, and digital artists create, evaluate, and visualize designs. The solution builds on the functions of Altair Evolve, and includes 3D rendering and animation software Inspire Render, which helps users rapidly generate photorealistic product renderings and animations. Both Inspire Studio and Inspire Render run on MacOS and Windows, and help designers open up their creativity to go beyond traditional CAID tools. The solutions will be introduced next month during a one-day launch event in Italy, and you can also get a free ticket to formnext 2019, where you can learn more about Inspire Studio and Inspire Render at Altair’s booth E11, hall 11.1.
“We are very pleased with these two new solutions for the global industrial design community. Inspire Studio builds on our previous industrial design tool, Evolve, while going beyond Evolve’s capabilities. Inspire Studio will enhance designers’ creativity by letting them drive their designs. It offers an intuitive user interface and a powerful construction history, allowing them to quickly create and explore multiple iterations of their design. Relying on the same modern user experience with powerful interactive, full progressive and raytracing rendering engine, Inspire Render will help designers quickly run photorealistic renderings and walkthrough animations on GPUs and CPUs,” said James Dagg, CTO at Altair.
3D Design and Rendering Software | Altair Inspire Studio
Remet Opens Modern Metal 3D Printing Laboratory
Polish steel structures manufacturer for the oil and gs mining industry, Remet, has launched a metal 3D printing laboratory equipped with a range of high quality machines and devices. The first of these is the DMP Flex 350 by 3D Systems, followed by 3D Systems’ Figure 4, the office-friendly metallic powder atomizer ATO Lab, and plenty of other specialized research equipment. Remet completed the project together with 3D Lab, a top Polish industrial 3D printer distributor and manufacturer of the ATO Lab.
The ATO Lab metal atomizer, which enables testing and fabrication of many powdered metal alloys, was the starting point for this unique laboratory. A new branch of the enterprise, called Remet Metal Labs, is where the company will work on comprehensive additive manufacturing and industrial applications projects. Its goal is to create highly flexible conditions for creating prototypes in the powder production field, and automotive, aviation, and space industry customers are invited to work with Remet to take advantage of the lab. 3D Lab and Remet will present their solutions together at formnext in Frankfurt next month.
Innofil3D Materials and Design Rules Video
This week, Innofil3D, and its parent company BASF, have a lot of news to share. First up, Ultrafuse BVOH, its water-soluble support filament, is now available for purchase, along with its new Ultrafuse 316L metal filament. Designed for easy FFF 3D printing, this is the company’s first metal material – 80% stainless steel with a 20% polymer content.
For users interested in 3D printing their Innofil3D PRO1 filament on a Raise3D printer, you can now join the Raise3D Open Filament Program to take advantage of optimized settings and print profiles. This new program is a collaboration between Raise3D and filament manufacturers, like Innofil3D, to find the top-performing materials for its 3D printers. Finally, Innofil3D has released its second video tutorial for design rules and principles of FFF 3D printing. Check out the video below, and be sure to visit BASF at its large K-Fair exhibit in Hall 5, C21/D21.
Equispheres Releases Test Results for Unique AM Powder
Materials science technology company Equispheres has released the results from its first powder testing phase, completed by a facility that certifies AM materials for applications in aerospace and defense. The results have confirmed that the powder has exceeded expectations, allowing for a 20-30% increase in mechanical performance and a 50% increase in production speeds. In light of this news, Equispheres is launching new equity financing in order to, as the company wrote in a press release, “grow and unlock the vast potential of Additive Manufacturing.”
“The unique properties of our powder, including the high sphericity, narrow particle size distribution and low surface area results in significantly increased packing density. This allows an increase of powder layer thickness by a factor of 2 which significantly increases build speed. Most importantly, this boost to build speed does not come with a mechanical performance penalty. Instead, the uniform nature of our powder ensures that parts are produced with reliable and consistent mechanical properties. The minimal variance in our performance results provides design engineers the statistical confidence to produce stronger, lighter parts,” said Equispheres’ CTO, Dr Martin Conlon.
Hackaday Project: Micro Deltesian 3D Printer
A new Hackaday project by architect Ekaggrat Singh Kalsi was just published – a micro Deltesian 3D printer, which he says offers a quality that’s on par with any Cartesian 3D printer. The printer has a solid aluminum frame, with a standard slider Y axis and a Delta mechanism for the XZ axis. A 3.5″ LCD touchscreen, with a built-in SD card, is fast and easy enough for his young daughter to use, which was his ultimate goal. With an 80 x 100 x 85 mm build volume and a print bed held in place with magnets, the biggest challenge in making the minuscule 3D printer easy to use was the filament loading; Singh Kalsi used a lever-based latch mechanism for this.
“the micro deltesian was born out of the curiosity of building the convoluted deltesian mechanism,” he explained. “Later on it evolved into the idea of building a 3d printer simple enough to be used by my daughter. The deltesian mechanism seem very wierd when i first saw it but eventually i thought maybe i should give it a try and hence this printer was born.”
Watch the video below to see just how easily his daughter uses the micro Deltesian 3D printer:
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Canada’s AM metal powder industry gets $8M boost at Equispheres
Canadian additive manufacturing powder producer Equisperes has just received an $8 million investment from early stage and SME financing bank BDC Capital. Headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, and driving at the green-benefits of metal 3D printing, Equishperes is well-positioned within BDC’s ongoing commitment to high-potential Canadian cleantech firms. The investment is also the latest advance in the nation’s […]