Desktop Metal develops metal 3D printing (additive manufacturing) technology designed for design and manufacturing teams. The company’s process emphasizes speed and durability, helping it move from prototyping toward real-world product manufacturing. Desktop Metal is Burlington, Mass.-based. It recently completed a $160 million Series E, bringing total funding to $438 million after a $65 million round in March that included Ford. The company says it will deploy the new capital to continue developing its metal 3D printing technology, expand its product roadmap, scale operations to meet growing orders, and finance major R&D initiatives. CEO Ric Fulop stated the funding will fuel those development and scaling efforts as the company pursues its mission of reinventing how teams print with metal. Desktop Metal develops metal 3D printers and is pushing a Production system slated for release in 2019 aimed at factory-scale manufacturing. Its core technology binds metal powders into polymers and then cooks them in a furnace. The company claims the process is 100-times faster and 20-times cheaper than existing 3D printing technologies. Desktop Metal already produces a printer built specifically for factory production and is working with automotive partners to scale use. It is collaborating with Ford toward printing parts on Ford’s production lines, and Ford added its CTO Ken Washington to Desktop Metal’s board. Financially, the company has raised a total of $277 million after a new $65 million round. Desktop Metal develops metal 3D printing systems, including the Studio prototyping machine and an upcoming Production system designed to bring 3D metal printing to manufacturing. Founded in 2013 by four MIT professors and based in Massachusetts, the company says its machines can print up to 100× faster than competitors and that the Production system can print 500 cubic inches of metal per hour. Customers include Lowe’s, Caterpillar and BMW, and the company’s $50,000+ Surface has been adopted by automakers and robotics firms for prototyping across many alloys. Desktop Metal is roughly 150 people, mostly engineers. The company plans to use new funding for R&D, hiring to grow the team, and to expand its market reach into Europe and Asia. Management says the Production system enables short production runs without tooling and can produce millions of parts per year per machine by its estimates. Desktop Metal develops desktop 3D printers designed to make metal objects for smaller businesses and designers. The company plans to move from research and development into production of its first printers and generate revenue by selling printers and proprietary high-performance alloys. CEO and co-founder Ric Fulop has said the printers will not employ lasers, though he has not disclosed the exact printing method. Desktop Metal positions its machines to enable prototype and production-ready metal parts across industries such as automotive, medical and aerospace. The startup faces competition from other metal-printing firms like XJet and alternative approaches such as metal-infused filaments for conventional desktop printers. The company highlights a large addressable market, citing roughly $12 trillion in manufactured parts processed globally each year. Desktop Metal is an industrial 3D printing company focused on developing metal 3D printers. The Lexington, MA startup's stated mission is to create a metal 3D printer for industrial use. It was founded by Ric Fulop, who previously founded A123 Systems and was a general partner at North Bridge Venture Partners. The company is about a year old. According to an SEC filing, Desktop Metal raised $33.76 million in a second-round funding. Return backers include NEA, Kleiner Perkins and Lux Capital, and the company has raised more than $47 million in total to date.

Total raised

$433M

Funding rounds

6

Latest round

Series E

Latest activity

Jan 2019