Freeform Raises $67M for AI-Native Manufacturing
Freeform, a metal additive manufacturing company, has raised $67 million in a Series B funding round. The company uses an AI-native platform to optimize part design and production for both defense and commercial clients. The funding highlights investor interest in startups that combine AI, robotics, and advanced manufacturing to modernize industrial supply chains.
- The company was founded by former SpaceX engineers Erik Palitsch (CEO) and TJ Ronacher, who were principal architects and lead analysts for the Merlin and Raptor rocket engine programs. Their experience with the shortcomings of existing metal 3D printing for aerospace applications directly informed Freeform's approach. - The new funding is designated for the launch of "Skyfall," the company's next-generation factory platform, which is slated to go live in the first half of 2026. Skyfall is engineered to increase production capacity by 25 times and expand the company's material offerings by more than tenfold. - Key investors in the Series B round include Founders Fund, AE Ventures (the venture arm of AE Industrial Partners), and NVentures, NVIDIA's venture capital arm. This follows a $14 million investment in late 2024 from NVentures and AE Ventures, which coincided with Freeform joining NVIDIA's Inception program for startups. - Freeform's strategy involves treating the factory as a unified, AI-native system, integrating robotics, sensing, and machine learning to create a "software-defined factory". The company uniquely houses high-performance computing clusters, including Nvidia H200 GPUs, directly on its factory floor to run real-time simulations and process controls. - This Series B round brings Freeform's total funding to approximately $117.88 million over four rounds. The company's valuation was estimated at around $179 million by Pitchbook prior to this latest funding. - The company is already in continuous production for what it describes as "the world's most advanced frontier programs" and has stated that customer demand now outpaces its current manufacturing capacity.
