Next-generation engineering design firm nTopology has secured $65 million in a new Series D financing round led by New York investment firm Tiger Global Management. Other participants in the round include the New York-based growth equity firm Oldslip Group, as well as existing investors Root Ventures, a California seed-stage deep tech firm investing in technical teams; early-stage venture capital firm Canaan Partners; outlier founder backers Haystack, and New York-based global venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners. The funds will support its design platform expansion into new applications and international markets and pushes its valuation over $140 million.
After raising more than $10 Million between 2016 and 2017, the company secured $20 million in 2019 thanks to a Series B round led by California firm Canaan Partners. Then again, in 2020, it raised $40 million from Insight Partners to develop its advanced engineering software even further, making it accessible to more engineers. Overall, nTopology has packed up $135 million, making this company one of 3DPrint.com’s top contenders for unicorn status.
nTopology co-founder and CEO Bradley Rothenberg. Image courtesy of nTopology.
Founded by Bradley Rothenberg and Greg Schroy in 2015, the company helps engineers create lightweight and optimized parts with their functional requirements built right in, overcoming design bottlenecks in product development. Its flagship software, nTop Platform, was launched in 2019, making it possible to control all modelings and usable in a wide range of applications, including aerospace, automotive, medical, and consumer products.
“Earlier in my career, I found that most of the engineering software, like CAD, was a bottleneck in driving innovative design. Our company was built specifically to solve engineers’ problems, allowing them to fully utilize the power of additive manufacturing processes and fill the gaps left by these old legacy design tools,” explains Rothenberg, who is also nTopology CEO.
Aerospace bracket optimized with nTopology software. Image courtesy of nTopology.
In the last 12 months, the company has experienced immense growth, doubling revenue and increasing headcount by roughly 40%. The team also scored an impressive partnership with 3D printing leader Stratasys, now collaborating to improve efficiency and increase productivity on the factory floor through nTopology’s platform.
Today, the 3D printing software specialist works with over 300 clients like Ford, Lockheed Martin, Honeywell, Emerson, and Wilson to provide their engineers with the next generation of design tools. The company’s tech builds on the future of product development by capturing the design process and combining it with robust computational workflows, allowing companies to cut costs and time spent in outdated computer-aided design (CAD).
Focused on a mission to provide various industries with the tools required for advanced manufacturing, nTopology claims to understand that many companies still face supply chain disruption and believes its solution is helping to alleviate many of these challenges. In April, the company launched nTopology 3.0, which introduced graphics processing unit (GPU) acceleration to reduce the visualization time of highly complex structures from minutes to mere seconds.
For its collaboration with 3D printer manufacturer Stratasys, nTopology was looking to further automate the design of manufacturing aids and to streamline the adoption of 3D printing for the factory floor. The new Stratasys and nTopology partnership incorporates the expertise of the 3D printing giant built on top of the fast modeling, field-driven design, and reusable workflows of nTopology’s nTop Platform engineering software. The objective is to offer the industry the combined tools to achieve true design for additive manufacturing, paving the way to widespread manufacturing adoption.
Aerospace bracket optimization workflow using nTopology software. Image courtesy of nTopology.
Its FDM Fixture Generator tool automates 90% of the design work required for simple jigs and fixtures. At the same time, their most recent collaboration, the Masking Fixture Module, eliminates the need for manual masking techniques. In addition, the company recently released a connector that streamlines nTopology’s integration to PLM systems, giving enterprise customers a clear roadmap for enhancing their product development software stack with powerful generative design capabilities.
The new capital will be ideal for expanding the range of applications nTopology serves in the product development process, strengthening its global footprint and growing its team. Tiger Global partner John Curtius said nTopology has emerged as “a new leader” in the engineering software space, as its customers use this software to design the most critical parts of their products. Servicing hundreds of clients already, the brand wants to optimize its generative design capabilities to take full advantage of new hardware and enhance parts where performance is critical.