Ford Invests in Metal 3D Printing Company Desktop Metal
Ford Motor Company is heading up a $65 million investment in Desktop Metal, a company whose goal is making metal 3D printing more readily accessibly and affordable for manufacturing and engineering purposes. As part of the investment, Ford Chief Technology Officer and Vice President of Research and Advanced Engineering Dr. Kenneth E. Washington joins the Desktop Metal Board of Directors.
“The age of metal 3D manufacturing is here and this strategic partnership with Ford, along with our portfolio of investors, validates our vision to transform the way metal parts will be designed and mass produced,” said Ric Fulop, CEO and co-founder of Desktop Metal. “The continued support of our investors underscores the power of our metal 3D printing solutions to help engineers and manufacturers, for the first time, apply metal 3D printing for the entire product development lifecycle—from prototyping to mass producing complex, high performance metal parts in a cost-effective way.”
To date, Desktop Metal has raised a total of $277 million as it continues its mission of making metal 3D printing scalable to industries and companies around the globe. Its Studio System is a metal 3D printer suitable for office settings that is capable of producing prototypes at a fraction of the cost of existing technology, and its Production System is the only 3D printing system capable of mass-manufacturing high-res metal parts thanks to a proprietary Single Pass Jetting technology.
Ford joins the likes of Future Fund, GV, New Enterprise Associates, GE Ventures, Lowe’s, and BMW iVentures in becoming a partner and investor with Desktop Metal. Since launching in 2015, the Massachusetts-based company has earned Popular Science’s 2017 Best of What’s New award and was named to MIT Technology Review’s list of the 50 Smartest Companies.
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