Freeform Secures $67M Series B to Expand AI-Powered Laser Manufacturing

Tech investors remain captivated by the vision of creating physical products with the speed and simplicity of software development.

Freeform, a startup pioneering a new 3D printing system for metal parts, has secured a $67 million Series B funding round to scale its manufacturing platform, company executives shared with TechCrunch.

The investor group comprises Apandion, AE Ventures, Founders Fund, Linse Capital, NVentures (Nvidia's venture arm), Threshold Ventures, and Two Sigma Ventures. Freeform chose not to reveal its post-funding valuation, though Pitchbook lists it at $179 million.

CEO and co-founder Erik Palitsch stated the capital will fuel the upgrade from its current "GoldenEye" printing system—which employs 18 lasers to fuse metal powders into precise components—to a new iteration. The next-generation platform, named "Skyfall," will utilize hundreds of lasers to produce thousands of kilograms of metal parts daily.

This advancement realizes a vision Palitsch and co-founder/president Thomas Ronacher embarked on in 2018. The pair met while developing rocket engines at SpaceX, where they observed that industrial metal 3D printers were costly, temperamental, and ill-suited for mass production.

Their startup was founded to build a platform from scratch, prioritizing high throughput, flexibility, and sophisticated software control. Palitsch describes Freeform's system as "AI native," highlighting a partnership with Nvidia that provides access to cutting-edge GPUs.

"I believe we're the only so-called manufacturing company with on-site H200 GPU clusters in a data center," Palitsch told TechCrunch. "What are they doing? They're running real-time, physics-based simulations and learning every facet of the end-to-end manufacturing workflow."

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The data gathered by sensors within the manufacturing platform and from simulations enables Freeform to rapidly enhance both production quality and volume.

"We possess more meaningful data on the physics of metal printing than any other company globally," said Cameron Kay, Head of Talent.

While Palitsch could not name specific customers, he confirmed the company is already supplying hundreds of "mission-critical" components. Now, Freeform aims to hire up to 100 new employees and expand its facility to address its growing contract backlog.

The "manufacturing-as-a-service" sector has expanded as venture investors show increased interest in building vehicles, robots, and energy systems. For instance, Hadrian recently achieved a $1.6 billion valuation for its automated defense production, while VulcanForms and Divergent have raised hundreds of millions to develop their own metal-printing services.