In the field of composite materials, one of the most important areas for the manufacturing industry is carbon fiber reinforced materials, which can provide strength comparable to metals and are very light. Carbon fiber needs to consider the ratio of weight to strength, including aerospace, automotive, electronic products, etc. The fields have broad application prospects.
Today, the market for 3D printed carbon fiber composite materials has begun to be mass-produced. Arris Composites, a company from California, USA, recently received 48.5 million US dollars (about 340 million yuan) in round B financing. Its purpose is to achieve the continuity of the next generation of mass market. 3D printing production-level application of fiber composite materials.
From product design and material end, make great efforts to subvert the potential
Arris will expand its proprietary composite manufacturing capabilities and open facilities in the US and Taiwan, which will meet the needs of the consumer electronics industry.
This round of financing was led by Taiwania Capital and was jointly invested by NEA, Valo Ventures, and Alumni Ventures Group (AVG), an American alumni investment group. NEA led Arris Composites' $ 10 million Series A round in January 2019.
Carl Bass, former CEO of Autodesk, joined the board as an independent director. Carl has been working as an angel investor, consultant and research partner at Arris since 2017, when Arris Composites was incubated in his personal workshop.
According to NEA, since NEA began to cooperate with Arris Composites in 2018, NEA has witnessed the maturity of Arris Composites manufacturing technology and is aware of the application prospects of Arris Composites technology in consumer electronics, automotive, aerospace and other industries. Facing the next generation of product manufacturing, Arris Composites manufacturing technology can mass produce high-performance composite materials in new ways, bringing incredible hope to various products. Specifically, Arris Composites has subversive potential in the following two aspects:
Popular carbon fiber products
Arris Composites has achieved mass production of high-strength and lightweight composite parts through its proprietary Additive Molding ™ manufacturing technology. Through this new process, advanced carbon fiber materials can be produced at the same speed as plastic molded products. To unlock the potential of the application side, Arris Composites has developed unique software tools for internal design collaboration and application engineering teams. Now, the application side can design and produce previously impossible products through Arris Composites equipment and software. These products are highly integrated, stronger and lighter than metal.
Cross-border design revolution
Arris Composites technology has been applied in multiple markets, using revolutionary continuous carbon fiber reinforcement to make products lighter, stronger, and smarter. On the one hand, Arris Composites' solution meets the needs of industrial and automotive manufacturers seeking corrosion-resistant, high-strength and durable glass fiber and carbon fiber structural parts. On the other hand, Arris Composites' solution has unleashed the innovative potential of consumer goods and sportswear brands, enabling the consumer sector to seek new business advantages by improving product performance and differentiation.
Currently, consumer electronics is the fastest growing market for Arris Composites, and its next-generation consumer electronics devices are designed to be lighter, smaller, and smarter. The 3D printing technology makes the product update cycle short and the pace of innovation fast. It is likely that the portable electronic device is the first manufactured product that Arris provides to the public.
Taiwan Capital-Taiwania Capital is impressed with the application potential of Arris Composites in the field of consumer electronics. Taiwan Capital-Taiwania Capital has deep manufacturing expertise and has a good track record in expanding new high-capacity consumer electronics technology. At the same time, Taiwan Capital -Taiwania Capital is also an ideal partner to assist Arris Composites in expanding its production scale in the consumer electronics market.
According to Taiwania Capital, Arris Composites' attraction to Taiwanese capital is its ability to manufacture consumer electronics, which was impossible with previous manufacturing technologies. Although electronic equipment in portable devices has made significant progress in the past, the structure has not changed much, and Arris Composites is changing all that.
Recyclable composite materials
Because of its light weight, the composite material has the advantage of greatly reducing fuel consumption. However, recyclability has always been a problem. Arris Composites uses a new generation of recyclable composite materials, which makes the waste stream generated by today's products become the raw material of future products.
Arris Composites, established in 2017, raised US $ 58.5 million (over RMB 400 million) in a short period of round A + B rounds of financing. Various elements of hardware, software, materials, and application development are available. The reason Arris Composites attracts capital markets comes from production-oriented solutions. The management team comes from the top alumni resources and founders of UCLA California Beckley and MIT, Yale. The team's previous work experience of Arevo and TNO.
Arevo Labs from Silicon Valley of the United States not only provides carbon fiber industrial-grade 3D printers, but also provides new carbon fiber and carbon nanotube (CNT) enhanced high-performance materials for 3D printing, and can use the market with its proprietary 3D printing technology and special software algorithms. The existing filament fusion 3D printers manufacture product-grade super-strong polymer parts. Arevo Labs is combining carbon nanotubes or other nanofillers with fiber-filled polymers to produce 3D printed materials with excellent mechanical, electrical, and thermal properties.
Regarding TNO, according to the market research of 3D Science Valley, TNO is best at composite printing of multiple materials, and has unparalleled advantages in speed, fast, cheap and flexible, which pushes 3D printing to an unprecedented height . In terms of 3D printing, TNO's Hyproline hybrid manufacturing system once astounded the industry. In the past, 3D printing was spread with a layer of powder and then processed with a layer. The print head was waiting for a lot of time. With RFID chip control, TNO makes the 3D printing process more compact and coordinated, making this technology cheaper and more economical.
TNO has also developed a series of print heads that can quickly eject "inks" of different materials, including UV-curable conductive inks. The droplet size of these "inks" can be as small as 30 microns, and the printing accuracy can be Up to 0.1 microns. It can replace traditional screen printing and photolithography techniques to manufacture structural electronic devices, and is especially suitable for electronic and circuit printing on non-planar object surfaces and objects with complex structures and narrow spaces.