Velo3D Lands Largest Metal 3D Printer Order to Date, from Aerospace Customer

Recently, Velo3D received its largest order in company history since its launch commercially in 2018. An existing aerospace customer placed an order worth $20 million for Velo3D’s innovative, industrial metal additive manufacturing (AM) printers.

This is all the more remarkable as COVID-19 has hit investments and sales for businesses across industries. However, in the midst of the pandemic, Velo3D raised $40 million and increased total fundraising to $150 million till date.

Having received their largest order to date, the company’s founder and CEO Benny Buller said,

“This significant order validates that VELO3D’s SupportFree process is production-ready. Our recent successes across various industrial sectors show that many OEMs and contract manufacturers are adapting their supply chain to meet the demands of manufacturing mission-critical components. Design freedom, agile production, and quality assurance are requirements that VELO3D is uniquely positioned to meet.”

Not only does the order validate the interest and willingness to adopt Velo3D’s solutions, but it also highlights the distinct advantages their metal printers bring in geometric freedom (largely support free, with proprietary recoating technology), agile production, and quality assurance through their patented SupportFree process, pre-print software Flow, and Assure quality assurance and control system.

These advantages and a rapidly growing customer base in technically-demanding industries such as aerospace and oil & gas, have propelled Velo3D as a leading provider of metal powder bed fusion systems and solutions. We’ve recently discussed the competition it may face from firms such as ANSYS and Hexagon, in terms of quality control, and Desktop Metal, Xjet and Markforged, in terms of potential ease of use and limited post-processing.

Velo3D also drew attention when it began supplying its metal AM printers to SpaceX, arguably the world’s leading space company in the private sector, to build parts for the next generation of starship engines. In addition, the company launched its new next-generation Sapphire metal additive manufacturing system earlier this April, which particularly addressed build chamber size issues, by way of being the world’s tallest metal laser-powder AM system with a closed chamber. The system will begin to ship in the last quarter of this year.

A Shrouded Impeller Printed on the Velo3D, note the supports on the bottom.

It will be interesting to see how competitors respond to Velo3D’s metal AM solutions which have addressed critical support and post-processing issues (overhangs less than 5-10 degrees, drastically reduced need for support structures, larger inner diameters possible), as well as quality and consistency issues for critical metal parts that were a challenge with older PBF printers. With a host of new investors providing funds and increasing orders from key customers in technically demanding industries, Velo3D seems positioned to accelerate and lead the PBF solutions market in the near future.