Stifel Receives Final Federal Approval for AM Forward Fund

In February 2024, Stifel Financial Corp. announced that it had received US government approval to begin raising funds for its Stifel North Atlantic AM-Forward Fund. Stifel has now announced that the fund has received final approval from the Small Business Administration (SBA), with the latter granting the fund a Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) license, making it eligible for supplemental funding from the SBA.

The Applied Science and Technology Research Organization (ASTRO) of America selected Stifel as its partner on the fund, which is the first fund to receive approval from a Department of Defense (DoD) and SBA joint program announced in December 2022, the SBIC Critical Technology (SBICCT) initiative. The purpose of SBICCT is to stimulate private investment in industries that revolve around technologies deemed critical to national security by the US government.

ASTRO America, a 501(c)(3) think tank, has been working closely with the Biden administration’s AM Forward compact since the latter was launched in May 2022, towards the end of helping small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the US standardize and build up their AM capabilities. Although it is not the only angle, one catalyst behind the establishment of the SBICCT fund is to help SMEs fulfill the guidelines of AM Forward.

According to Stifel, Lockheed Martin, GE Aerospace, and ASTM International are among the first contributors to the AM-Forward Fund. The bank notes that capital from the fund “will connect manufacturers with lead system integrators to meet the growing industry demand for low-volume high-mix components”.

ASTRO America head Neal Orringer meets with officials at the Pentagon in August 2023, to discuss what would become the AM-Forward Fund. Image courtesy of ASTRO America

In a press release, co-president of Stifel, Victor Nesi, said, “We are pleased to receive this license from the SBA. In collaboration with our strategic partners, we are proud to give America’s emerging small businesses the capital and strategic support they need to advance innovation that supports our supply chain, creates domestic jobs, amplifies manufacturing capacity, and importantly, increases national security.”

Andy Kireta, president of ASTM International, said, “Small and medium size manufacturers are at the core of ASTM International, and we are excited that our global standards and solutions will serve as an innovative tool in connecting the diverse supply chains of our aerospace and defense industries.”

Image courtesy of the SBA

However much progress AM Forward may have made thus far — and, despite what many detractors may think, AM Forward has been progressing, albeit largely behind the scenes — it is perhaps only now that the initiative can be said to have begun, in earnest. Not a moment too soon, either, as the US AM industry is in desperate need of some positive momentum.

Despite the persistence of a bleak outlook for the industry, it’s important to keep in mind how early we still are in the rebirth of US manufacturing. It took something like four decades to gradually outsource the bulk of US manufacturing capacity to the areas of the planet that the US government is now terrified of having to compete with. We’re never going to get anywhere close to all that manufacturing capacity back, and to reshore even some significant chunk may take just as long as it took to outsource.

That all may sound pessimistic, but the silver lining is that the illusions are dissipating: all the key stakeholders are at least starting to understand how long-term and monumental an effort it will take to transform how America sources manufactured goods, and that the future US industrial landscape won’t look anything like how it looked in the past. The AM-Forward Fund’s official launch is a key first step, and the AM industry needs to keep putting pressure on the US’s largest manufacturing stakeholders to put their money where their mouth is.