Additive manufacturing company becomes unicorn, opens new facilities in Mass.

Massachusetts’ latest unicorn is expanding its presence in the state with two new production facilities and plans to revitalize U.S. manufacturing.

VulcanForms uses additive manufacturing, machining and assembly services to produce custom parts that go into products like the F35 Joint Strike Fighter, medical implants and semiconductors. The MIT-born company announced today that it has expanded its manufacturing capabilities with two new production facilities in Devens and Newburyport.

The Burlington-based company also announced a $355 million fundraise, putting its valuation over $1 billion. VulcanForms’ investors in this new round include Eclipse Ventures, Fontinalis Partners and Boston Seed Capital.

“It would be incorrect to say that manufacturing can just come back in its old form,” John Hart, VulcanForms’ co-founder, told BostInno. “To rebuild U.S. manufacturing, we need to lead with technology and develop new manufacturing systems that involve advanced technology and also consider the human factors and the supply chains related to it.”

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VulcanForms was founded in 2015 by Martin Feldmann and Hart, a mechanical-engineering professor at MIT. The pair met in a course Hart was teaching on additive manufacturing when Feldmann was a graduate student. After completing his program, Feldmann stayed at MIT to work in Hart’s lab. Feldmann and Hart went on to patent and build a laser metal additive manufacturing technology that they’ve evolved and scaled over the years.

The company’s name is not derived from a Star Trek connection, Hart said, but rather from the Roman god of metallurgy. Vulcan was known as a master forger whose ancient techniques predated additive manufacturing and its computer-guided laser beams that melt metal powders into different products.

Here are the Mass. companies that reached "unicorn" status in the first half of 2022, not including VulcanForms. Scroll through the gallery, or continue reading below:

VulcanForms said its customers include companies in the aviation, space, defense, medical and semiconductor industries. It supplies more than a dozen U.S. Department of Defense programs.

Hart said they’re seeing more companies looking for U.S.-based manufacturing solutions, and they’re aiming to help meet that need.

“There are the geopolitical factors of supply-chain security and the ability to control your operations and when your product ships,” Hart said. “I think there’s a renewed realization of the importance of manufacturing to innovation and that in order for the U.S. to remain innovative, we need to produce products domestically.”

Hart said the company occupied the Devens facility in late 2020 and began building machines there in 2021. The Devens facility, also known as VulcanOne, is the company’s additive manufacturing hub, while the Newburyport facility is used for machining and assembly. Both are open and already shipping products to customers.

“We like to call ourselves a digital manufacturing company where our 3-D printing is one part of it. I like to call it the cornerstone,” Hart said. “There are components we provide that are printed and then machined. There’s also components we provide that aren’t printed and are just machined and in some cases assembled into bigger products.”

VulcanForms has around 360 employees and Hart said they currently have about 50 job openings, including engineering, management and production roles.

Hart said the Devens and Newburyport facilities were chosen for their access to Greater Boston’s talent pool, proximity to the Burlington headquarters and the ease of working with the cities on required permits.

“We’re eager to find opportunities to place our next facilities when we’re ready,” Hart said.