Zeda Opens 3D Printing Facility in Cincinnati to Serve Regulated Industries

May 24, 2023 by Sarah Saunders 3D Printing Business Medical 3D Printing

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Today, California-based Zeda, Inc. announced that it has officially opened the doors to its new 75,000-square-foot advanced manufacturing facility in Cincinnati, Ohio. The company, which rebranded to Zeda from PrinterPrezz and Vertex Manufacturing in March, specializes in nanotechnology and advanced 3D manufacturing solutions for the aerospace and defense, medical, and space. This new digital foundry will offer nano-coating, 3D printing, machining, and other manufacturing technologies to its customers in these highly regulated industries.

AM leader Greg Morris, the CTO of Zeda, will lead the new facility, and is building a quality team that can support the company’s expansion. The new space has grown significantly from the company’s existing 16,000-square-foot space, and offers plenty of room for future growth and additional capabilities to meet increased demand for Zeda’s advanced manufacturing services. I toured the facility when it was still under construction, and at the time, Morris told me that when PrinterPrezz acquired his Vertex Manufacturing company back in 2021, the purpose was “to continue to do what we do with aerospace and the DoD, and energy, and other industries, but also a significant medical focus and making the actual cervical spinal implants and instrumentation.”

“We have seen exponential growth in our Cincinnati business over the past year and expect that to continue for the foreseeable future as we expand our presence in various industries, specifically aviation, defense, energy, medical, and space,” Morris said in a Zeda press release. “With this new world-class, state-of-the-art facility set to come online in Q3 2023, we will have the capacity and capabilities to maintain and grow our leading position in the market.”

Right after the rebranding was revealed, Zeda announced that it had closed a $52 million Series B funding round, which brought its total capital raised to $68 million. The company invested $20 million of that into the facility, and all of the high-tech, capital equipment needed for both large- and small-format metal 3D printing, along with secondary manufacturing processes like CNC machining. Due to its focus on regulated industries, the new facility will be AS9100 & ISO 13485 certified, and features advanced manufacturing technology, automation, and data collection capabilities.

“This new facility helps Zeda offer value to our customers in multiple ways,” said Steve Rengers, Senior Vice President of Zeda. “Using a portion of the facility, we built out an end-to-end pipeline utilizing high-end additive printers, and the latest CNC machines meet stringent requirements across multiple regulated industries.
“We also ensured the new facility provides physical space for growth. In that way, Zeda can grow with the customer. This allows us to build out processes and ‘manufacturing cells’ to meet specific customers’ needs — which may entail higher security, proprietary materials, or unmatched efficiency to yield lower part costing.”

With all of this technology, the Cincinnati facility will support lights-out manufacturing, in addition to, as Zeda put it, “the vertical integration of medical cleaning, passivation, and pack automation.” In addition, the new digital foundry, which Zeda CEO Shri Shetty told me in March took more time to design than build because “a facility like this does not exist,” will also be able to support advanced manufacturing technologies, prototyping, and process development.

“We’re excited that this facility is coming on stream. It signals that we’re on a solid growth path and gives us the necessary room and utilities to expand our capacity and capabilities to meet the growing demand for localizing supply chains,” said Zeda’s Co-Founder and COO Kishore Karkera. “With the recent closure of our $52 million Series B funding round and the launch of our new facility, we’re pushing forward with our vision to help our served industries and customers build things better.”

In March, Morris told me that Zeda expected to get occupancy of the building in the next few months, with plans to start moving equipment in June. So the company is right on schedule.