Adaptive3D Announces Series A Investment Round: Investors Include DSM Venturing, Applied Ventures, Chemence

Texas-headquartered Adaptive3D has announced an investment round co-led by two companies, DSM Venturing (funding arm of Royal DSM) and Applied Ventures (the venture capital arm of Applied Materials). In a recent press release sent to 3DPrint.com, they state that they have secured Series A financing. Chemence, a materials and adhesives supplier headquartered in Georgia, will also participate in the investment round.

“Adaptive3D seeks to challenge the cost, throughput and performance in markets today dominated by traditional injection molding, blow molding and other thermoplastic processing techniques,” said Adaptive3D founder and CEO, Walter Voit. “By delivering lightweight, sustainable, micro-latticed structures with superior thermal, chemical, optical and mechanical properties, Adaptive3D seeks to drastically increase the utilization of plastics and rubbers in end applications using additive manufacturing.”

Dr. Walter Voit

“There are only a handful of chemical companies around the world with the global supply chain, distribution channels and application expertise to drive change in how the world manufactures plastics, and we are thrilled to have Royal DSM, one of them, ranked as one of the world’s most sustainable companies, partnering with Adaptive to further develop its engineered materials,” continued Voit. “In a similar vein, there are only a handful of companies in the world with the materials expertise, equipment manufacturing capabilities at scale and creative internal culture to enable a paradigm change in additive manufacturing. Applied Materials is at the top of that list.”

Adaptive3D’s versatile materials, which they describe as having mechanical properties so far ‘unmatched,’ are meant for complex plastic and rubber parts specifically created in environments with open-air production. They have accrued multiple patents centered around materials studies, with some of their data translated from the University of Texas at Dallas, based on past funding from the following:

• Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
• The National Science Foundation
• National Institutes of Health

The technical research company’s polymer resins are currently distributed globally, with the intention to continue optimizing materials for high-volume additive manufacturing practices. Currently they fabricate rubber-like materials, tough damping materials, and low-cure stress photopolymers to be distributed to industries including:

• Healthcare
• Consumer goods
• Transportation
• Oil and Gas

Royal DSM and Applied Materials both plan to play a part in continued and even greater success for Adaptive3D as they forge ahead in the ‘emerging AM ecosystem,’ offering solutions focused on unique materials.

“At DSM we believe that the age of additive manufacturing for industrial applications is, in fact, the age of materials,” said Hugo Da Silva, DSM VP of Additive Manufacturing.  “Adaptive3D’s engineered photoresins enable new design paradigms in end applications. Working together with Applied Materials allows us to think globally about big problems at scale and offer big ecosystem solutions.”

Royal DSM is centered around scientific research, delivering goods for human and animal nutrition, personal care, green products, medical devices, and even to industries such as mobility and connectivity. Applied Materials overall seeks to take the realm of global requirements for chips and displays.

“Applied Materials is a global leader in semiconductor processing and patterning with light and e-beam technology,” said Om Nalamasu, President of Applied Ventures and CTO of Applied Materials. “Adaptive3D’s photoresins coupled with large-area processing and advanced patterning techniques could potentially deliver robust materials-based solutions at high throughput and low cost across multiple industry verticals.”

While enormous amounts of attention have been focused on the software and hardware of 3D printing over the last few years, users in many different capacities are now also drawn to delving into the science of materials more than ever imagined; after all, materials are what allow us to bring our concepts and products to fruition in terms of true functionality. Options for materials in 3D printing just continue to develop further, and Adaptive3D continues to expand these horizons, progressing just as they promised when we began following their ambitious journey into high-performance 3D printing materials with the advent of ToughRubber, an extremely flexible photopolymer. Find out more about this Dallas-based company here.

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