Freeform has obtained a massive investment boost, and the backers include NVIDIA.
If you haven’t heard of Freeform, they are a very interesting metal 3D printing startup company. Formed only a few years ago in California by ex-SpaceX and Velo3D engineers, they’ve developed a unique 3D printing process that significantly refines the LPBF process.
Their process has gone live, but you won’t see them selling their proprietary 3D printer. Instead, they’ve smartly chosen to operate it as a factory service: ask them for parts, and they will make them. This approach allows them to constantly upgrade the equipment and operate it with the most experienced folks available on every job. And they don’t have to spend anything on a distributed support organization.
Their approach has apparently been quite successful, with plenty of companies getting their parts made by Freeform. This in turn has attracted a number of investors that have just provided the company with a huge US$67M funding round.
The companies behind the investment are a set of typical venture capital firms, including Apandion, AE Ventures, Founders Fund, Linse Capital, Threshold Ventures, Two Sigma Ventures, and NVentures.
The last one is of most interest. NVentures turns out to be NVIDIA’s venture capital arm. Their website explains:
“We invest intechnology visionaries solving complex problems to reshape our world. Through a unique mix of expertise and resources, we build long-term partnerships with bold teams to accelerate their journeys.”
In fact, if you look through the list of companies they’ve invested in, virtually all of them are heavy AI-based operations. In other words, users of NVIDIA’s GPU hardware and software.
This is very likely the case with Freeform: their process involves the use of AI to control the LBPF operations in real time to achieve near-perfect metal prints. NVIDIA wants them to succeed. In fact, Freedom said:
“The next generation of part design and physical manufacturing will be powered by high-performance computing, where GPUs enable the sensing, simulation, and real-time control required to transform the physical world. This raise reflects our ability to deploy Physical AI in real production environments today and demonstrates how NVIDIA’s computing platforms unlock a fundamentally new approach to scalable manufacturing.”
But what will Freeform do with all this fresh cash? They explain:
“This funding accelerates Skyfall, our next-generation factory platform scheduled to go live in the first half of 2026. Skyfall will substantially expand capability across our factory network and allow us to continue to meet rapidly increasing customer demand.”
This goes back to their factory philosophy: upgrades like that are far easier. If instead they had sold machines, they would have to be out in the field doing upgrades, and there are always slowpoke customers that choose not to upgrade, causing Freeform to maintain support for longer periods. The approach works.
It looks like Freeform is here to stay.
Via Freeform
