GE Ventures, General Electric's venture capital arm, can now count another Boston-area startup as part of its portfolio: Lexington 3D printing startup Desktop Metal.
"Our company is focused on the barriers that hold metal 3D printing back: price, performance, and variety of materials."
Desktop Metal — which is led by former North Bridge VC and A123 Systems founder Ric Fulop — revealed on Tuesday that it has received strategic investments from GE Ventures and Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, the venture capital arm of Saudi Arabian Oil Company, and that it has raised a total of $52 million to date. Other investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, New Enterprise Associates, Stratasys and Lux Capital.
The startup is using the money for product development, hiring and business operations in its bid to develop a lower-cost and easier way of doing metal 3D printing for the commercial sector.
“Our company is focused on the barriers that hold metal 3D printing back: price, performance, and variety of materials," Fulop said in a statement. "Today’s technology is where computing was in the 1970’s. It’s too costly and cumbersome to scale. We want to bring an everyday-use metal 3D printing solution to the workspace of every engineering team and we have the industry-ready team to do it."
Steve Taub, senior director of advanced manufacturing at GE Ventures, said "Additive manufacturing is crucial to accelerating innovation at GE and bringing better products to market faster. We are excited to be part of Desktop Metal’s future as they tackle these challenges to broader accessibility."
