3D printing pioneer Carbon3D secures Autodesk investment

A 3D printing technique that could be up to 100 times faster than current technologies has received backing from Autodesk, the US-listed software company, in a move that will help speed up its commercialisation.

The company on Thursday announced a $10m investment in Carbon3D, a Silicon Valley start-up that is pioneering a manufacturing technique that pulls a three-dimensional object out of liquid resin.

The technology, known as "continuous liquid interface production", or Clip, could help accelerate the uptake of 3D printing in the manufacturing industry by making the process of forming complex objects significantly faster and producing better quality parts.

The investment is part of Autodesk's Spark Investment Fund, which it launched last October with the aim of investing up to $100m in 3D printing start-ups. Carbon3D is the fund's first announced investment, which has seen more than 600 companies apply.

"The 3D printing industry needs to deliver on its promise to drive the next industrial revolution and [the fund] enables us to identify and support new technologies and teams that will fundamentally change how products are manufactured," said Carl Bass, chief executive at Autodesk.

Although 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, has been around since the 1980s, it is only in recent years that advances in the technology have helped it play a bigger role in both industry and consumer markets. Companies ranging from Boeing, General Electric and Siemens are already using 3D printing methods to make end products.

The global products and services market for 3D printing rose 35.2 per cent from 2013 to $4.1bn in 2014, according to a report published this week by Wohlers Associates, a 3D printing consultancy.

However, wider adoption of the technology has been limited by the time it takes to print, the cost of the machines and the quality of the materials.

The tabular content relating to this article is not available to view. Apologies in advance for the inconvenience caused.

Rather than printing objects layer by layer such as current 3D printing, Carbon3D's technology works by harnessing light and oxygen to grow objects from a pool of resin. Different shapes can be created by balancing the interaction of light, to solidify the resin, and oxygen, to prevent the resin from solidifying.

Joseph DeSimone, chief executive and co-founder of Carbon3D, said: "By working at the intersection of hardware, software and molecular science, we are aiming to fundamentally address the issues that have held 3D printing back from becoming a manufacturing process." The group plans to launch its first 3D printer and a range of materials in the next year.

Carbon3D was founded in 2013 by researchers at the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State University and has raised more than $41m in funding.

© The Financial Times Limited 2015. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation