Arris Composites: Closes $10 Million Series A Funding Round, NEA Leads

Arris Composites, headquartered in Berkeley, California, announced today that they have closed $10 million in Series A funding. With the mission to ‘unlock the world’s highest-performance composites for the masses,’ they have now also unlocked more capital, with funding led by NEA. Most likely, they will continue the stealth development for which they have become known.

Over the past two years, Arris has been working in numerous industries embracing both 3D printing and traditional methods of manufacturing; for instance, they are heavily involved in innovating for automotive applications—an industry that has quietly been using 3D printing and additive manufacturing processes for decades. The same goes for aerospace leaders, another industry where Arris has a hand in developing composite materials, with their technology responsible for economical resins and glass fibers currently being used, along with consumer applications too.

Furthering their hold on 3D printing composites, Arris discloses that their team (involved in both AM and conventional production) has indeed created a new process for high-speed manufacturing, resulting in ‘precisely aligned composites,’ but they are not forthcoming with any other details other than to explain that these new parts will be able to ‘outperform’ 3D printing in metal and other aerospace components made from current composites. This will apply to not only structural properties and ‘minimum feature size,’ but also affordability in production.

“I’m extremely excited about what Arris is building,” says Jeff Immelt, venture partner at NEA, and former CEO and chairman of GE. “What we did in automotive to replace non-structural metal with low cost/lightweight injection molded composites in the 1980’s, Arris has now enabled for the rest of the vehicle.”

“The product architectures that are now possible with our high-volume manufacturing process unlock a host of competitive advantages for some of the highest revenue and highest value products in the world,” says Ethan Escowitz, founder and CEO of Arris Composites. “Vehicles and consumer products are being redesigned to take advantage of the mass market manufacturing technology of tomorrow. Things are about to get lighter and smaller, and Arris is making that a reality.”

While 3D printing is a technology rooted in engineering and prototyping, the infinite opportunities for innovation inspire creativity in users around the world in nearly every field. With open-source designs available, and open-source hardware and software also made accessible to users, objects and processes can be perfected as well. The same concept translates to materials. There are many incredible polymers, metals, and alternatives available today, but as advanced users find them lacking, composites are constantly being created too, making for more complex 3D printed, 4D printed, and bioprinted creations that can be made with improved mechanical properties, greater strength overall, and lighter weight.

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