From store mannequins and prosthetic devices, to aerospace parts and hybrid rocket engine fuel, Colorado Springs’s Titan Robotics is responsible for a wide variety of 3D-printed items.
But in an industry once used primarily for prototyping, founder and CEO Clay Guillory is eyeing a much larger market for 3D printed goods.
Titan Robotics began like many startups do, in a garage and as a hobby.
In 2014, Clay worked in mechanical engineering by day and tinkered on a 3D printing kit in the garage on nights and weekends.
After a month, Clay got the printer working and put it on Craigslist. He began taking requests for 3D printer builds, using all of his spare time to produce parts and machines.
As word of his work spread, the number of project requests increased.
In 2015, he quit his job and went full-time in the 3D printer business. His wife, Maddie, quit her job in television news and joined the company shortly thereafter.
“I didn’t mean to start a company,” Clay said with a laugh.
Although it began as a hobby set in his garage, Titan has grown exponentially in recent years, garnering global notice for their solutions.
Titan now has about 25 employees in an office space in Colorado Springs, where they build and sell large-scale, industrial 3D printers for additive manufacturing needs across the world. If a company has a 3D printing need, Titan Robotics will custom design a printer to fit that specific need.
“We’re more of a solutions company. If a company has an idea for something, we’ll invent the technology and make the machine. It brings 3D printing to a production scale,” Clay said.
“That’s where our focus is, making something that is reliable and customized for what the customer needs,” Maddie added.
Titan has created solutions for companies in aerospace, automobiles, furniture, prosthetics, mannequins and much more. They even crafted an 8-foot tall Lombardi Trophy for the Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl victory.
Titan’s use of pellet extrusion technology has allowed the company to focus its products on manufacturing needs. Pellet extrusion increases the speed at which parts can be created and expands the number and types of materials that can be printed.
Maddie said this technology has tightened Titan’s gaze on filling manufacturing needs.
“We really focus on being an industrial piece of equipment, we’re trying to get on factory floors,” she said.
This wasn’t always the case for 3D printers, as early iterations were largely used for prototyping. Titan is looking to break that mold.
“3D printing has been pigeonholed as prototyping for companies and it won’t survive if that’s all its for,” Clay said. “We see it as changing the way companies and people make things.”
The company has been bootstrapped to this point and will continue to be so as revenues support its growth. Clay said a time will come in the future for partnership, but it’s unlikely that it will feature venture capital.
“Our path to growth is through strategic partnerships and not through a VC round,” he said.
As the 3D printing industry continues to change and innovate at a fast pace, the husband and wife duo said Titan is positioned well to stay at the forefront.
“As a smaller company, we have a lot of flexibility in that we can innovate quickly. What we’re doing is really exciting. There’s something to be said about being able to create an infinite number of things and we’re pushing the boundary on how to do it,” Maddie said.
