Alloy Enterprises raises $26M for scaled aluminium fabrication
May 26, 2023
Alloy Enterprises, Burlington, Massachusetts, US, has announced the completion of a $26 million oversubscribed Series A round led by Piva Capital, along with new investors Unless, Flybridge Capital, MassMutual Catalyst Fund, Robert Downey Jr’s Footprint Coalition, and existing investors Congruent Ventures and Riot Ventures. The funding brings the total raised to $37 million.
Demand for aluminium has been growing, explained Alloy Enterprises, driven by lightweighting for e-mobility across the transportation sector and the need for more sustainable materials.
Using a combination of laser cutting and diffusion bonding, the team can reportedly yield production volumes through its machines cost-effectively while maintaining the advantages of Additive Manufacturing, such as reduced lead times, quick design iteration, avoiding expensive tooling, and a digitised inventory.
“The Alloy team has proven out a highly efficient process for delivering aluminium components quickly and at scale,” said Maria Buitron, Principal at Piva Capital. “This is a breakthrough for the industry that addresses the need for reasonable lead times, major cost reductions, and on-demand manufacturing, delivering direct benefits to EV, industrial and heavy equipment. We have been so impressed with the Alloy team and look forward to partnering with them to help them scale as the need for their solution ramps up.”
Aluminium, especially alloys such as 6061, can be difficult and expensive to additively manufacture using powder bed processes. In an attempt to combat this Alloy Enterprise developed its selective diffusion bonding process, specifically for aluminium, with scale production in mind. Its novel feedstock is already scaled and is produced in 10-ton runs. This summer, Alloy Enterprises intends to begin start delivering production volume parts. The company is actively evaluating and qualifying new customer applications and has the capacity for volume production.
“We have an incredible team with the ability to continuously solve hard R&D challenges while staying focused on the customers’ needs,” added Ali Forsyth, CEO Alloy Enterprises. “We went from invention to commercial sales in less than two years. With this sizeable fundraise, we’ve added great partners to the table to help us take Alloy to the next level.”
“We’ve made rapid progress and have garnered Fortune 100 manufacturing customers in three major market verticals: automotive, industrial, and heavy equipment. We’ve proven our manufacturing process and are already qualifying customer production parts. We will use this funding to ramp production capacity, further develop our software suite, and apply next-gen automation. We’re open for business and scaling rapidly, including hiring across the board in sales, marketing, applications, software, operations, and manufacturing,” Forsyth concluded.
