Jan 17, 2018 | By Tess
Seurat Technologies, a Silicon Valley-based startup, announces it has raised $13.5 million in a Series A funding round. The significant investment will reportedly be put towards funding and accelerating the company’s much-hyped metal additive manufacturing technology.
From left to right: Kourosh Kamshad VP Engineering, James DeMuth CTO, Erik Toomre CEO
The funding round was led by VC firm True Ventures and brought on high profile investors including GM Ventures, Porsche SE, Maniv Mobility, and next47, a venture capital firm working for Siemens Power and Gas. The $13.5 million raised comes in addition to a previous $3.41 million that Seurat obtained through a seed financing round this past June.
Within the 3D printing and manufacturing industries, Seurat Technologies has generated some significant buzz thanks to the revolutionary metal 3D printing technology it is currently developing.
The technology was first developed by a team at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) which included James DeMuth, Seurat’s current Chief Technology Officer. “Our ability to create this new technology would not have been possible without the leading-edge laser and optical engineering work performed at LLNL,” said DeMuth in a statement.
And though details of how the metal 3D printing technology works are still mostly under wraps, the company has filed over 20 patents for it and hints that it could be a game-changer in the industry.
Diagram detailing the laser recycling process
One of the company’s patents, filed in 2016, details a 3D printing process that consists of a “two-dimensional energy patterning system for imaging a powder bed.” It suggests that Seurat is exploring a metal 3D printing process that uses a “two-dimensional patterned energy beam" to sinter powdered metal, which is also capable of reusing the laser’s “rejected” energy for a more efficient system.
Seurat also proposes a “manipulator device” which could improve the additive manufacturing process by allowing for the manipulation and repositioning of a part while it is being printed. The manipulator device, which could be a crane, robotic arm, or something similar, “can grasp various permanent or temporary additively manufactured manipulation points on a part to enable repositioning or maneuvering of the part,” reads the patent.
The patent also addresses an aspect of the technology which could allow for a high level of scalability—a current challenge for industrial 3D printing technologies. This would come in the form of a moving build platform, which could be something like a conveyor belt build platform to make longer parts.
Diagram showing the long part manufacturing method by using multiple "zones"
The recent funding round will help the Silicon Valley company to progress the development of its AM tech and prepare it for market launch.
Erik Toomre, CEO of Seurat Technologies, commented: “We’ve been able to hit some significant milestones over the past few months. These funds will give us the fuel we need to rapidly accelerate our ability to commercialize this breakthrough with an initial focus on the automotive, energy, and aerospace sectors.”
“Metal additive manufacturing in its current form is still rooted in decades-old technology,” added Rohit Sharma, a venture partner at True Ventures. “We believe the Seurat team is primed to take metal printing from rapid prototyping and custom prints to industrial-grade scale.”
Posted in 3D Printer Company
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