Ex-SpaceX Engineers Secure $14 Million to Revolutionize Industrial Metal 3D Printing

In a major development that could transform manufacturing, two ex-SpaceX engineers have secured $14 million in funding to scale up their groundbreaking new method for 3D printing metal parts. Erik Palitsch and TJ Ronacher, who both gained valuable experience working on SpaceX’s advanced rocket engines, co-founded Freeform with a vision to make metal additive manufacturing practical for large-scale production applications.

While at SpaceX, Palitsch and Ronacher witnessed firsthand the immense potential that 3D printing with metal possesses. However, they also saw the significant drawbacks holding the technology back – inconsistent quality, slow print speeds, and prohibitively expensive equipment costs. Determined to overcome these challenges, the founders teamed up with additive manufacturing expert Tasso Lappas and established Freeform.

Rather than take the traditional route of developing powder-bed metal 3D printers to sell, Freeform opted for a smarter “printing as a service” model. This allowed them to custom-design an automated facility from the ground up for peak performance. A key innovation was implementing a closed-loop monitoring system that collects real-time data during prints and dynamically adjusts process parameters. Where others saw metal 3D printing as an “open loop” file playback process, Freeform took a more sophisticated approach.

To truly optimize their laser-powered metal fusion technique required an AI assistant capable of processing the immense volumes of sensor data streaming in at microsecond frequencies. Freeform leveraged their founders’ expertise in machine learning and mechatronics to develop a proprietary solution combining high-speed computer vision, FPGAs and GPUs. Their unique neural network model performs quality assurance inferences with unprecedented speed and accuracy.

Investors Boeing and Nvidia clearly recognized Freeform’s game-changing potential, participating in a $14 million seed round to commercialize their technology. The funding will allow significant manufacturing scale-up and hiring of additional staff. Freeform is already producing mission-critical parts for industries like aerospace, automotive, energy and more. With their data-driven methods and service model, they aim to revolutionize metal 3D printing and make additive manufacturing a routine part of 21st century production.