3D printing with metal is no longer a novel concept. It has been around for years, helping industries create complex metal parts that are often impossible or too costly to produce through traditional methods. However, metal additive manufacturing has yet to achieve widespread adoption due to a few persistent challenges. Most metal 3D printers are expensive, complicated to operate, and, more importantly, too slow and imprecise to compete with conventional manufacturing methods at scale.
Freeform, a startup backed by $14 million in funding from Nvidia and Boeing, is on a mission to change that. With a focus on developing a new metal additive manufacturing process, Freeform is positioning itself to disrupt the industry. At the heart of its innovation is a blend of advanced AI, high-speed feedback loops, and a business model that offers 3D printing as a service, making the technology accessible and scalable for industries that rely heavily on metal production.
Freeform’s Origin: Born from SpaceX
The story behind Freeform’s creation is rooted in the experiences of its co-founders, Erik Palitsch (CEO) and TJ Ronacher (President), both of whom spent years working at SpaceX. Palitsch served as a principal architect, while Ronacher was a lead analyst on the Merlin engines and other critical programs. During their time at SpaceX, they witnessed firsthand the potential of metal 3D printing but also experienced its limitations.
“We saw the potential of metal printing; it has the potential to transform basically any industry that makes metal things,” Palitsch explained. “But adoption has been slow, and success has been marginal at best. Why is it not practical to use at scale? Fundamentally, because of three things: inconsistent quality, slow print speeds, and astronomical costs.”
Driven by their desire to unlock metal 3D printing’s full potential, the two teamed up with Tasso Lappas, the former CTO of Velo3D, to found Freeform. Their goal: to build a new kind of metal 3D printing process that overcomes the challenges of traditional approaches, especially in quality, speed, and cost.
Rethinking the Metal 3D Printing Process
One of the primary mistakes made by companies in the metal printing space, according to Palitsch, was modeling their business on traditional CNC (computer numerical control) machines. These machines have been the cornerstone of manufacturing for decades, with companies selling the hardware, software, and associated processes to allow customers to create their own parts. However, metal additive manufacturing is fundamentally different.
“The way these things work today is they’re ‘open loop’ — they’re basically playing back a file,” said Palitsch. “They needed to be smarter than that, because the process by which you melt metal powder with a laser is extremely complicated and infinitely variable.”
Unlike traditional manufacturing, where precision can be achieved consistently through rigid controls and predefined processes, metal additive manufacturing involves melting metal powders with lasers—a process that can vary greatly depending on heat, pressure, and material composition. Selling a printer and telling customers to “become an expert to make it work” was simply not a sustainable business model.
A Closed-Loop Printing Service
To address these challenges, Freeform decided to offer printing as a service rather than selling the machines themselves. This allows them to focus on operationalizing the entire process, ensuring that every print meets the highest standards of quality and precision without requiring the customer to become an expert in the technology.
Their key innovation lies in the use of a closed-loop system that monitors the printing process in real-time, adjusting parameters on a microsecond scale. The result is faster and more consistent prints, with the ability to create complex geometries that would be difficult to achieve using traditional manufacturing methods.
“We have high-speed computer vision feedback on our system that runs at microsecond scale, and all that data is being processed on state-of-the-art FPGAs and GPUs,” Palitsch explained. “We had to build this whole stack ourselves out of stuff that’s only become available in the last few years.”
The closed-loop system ensures that even as the printer operates at high speeds, the quality of the output remains consistent. This combination of speed and precision allows Freeform to cater to industries that demand high-quality metal parts, such as aerospace, automotive, and energy.
AI-Powered Precision
While the closed-loop system mitigates many of the quality control issues, making the process work at scale required another major innovation: AI. Freeform built a machine-learning model capable of processing the massive amounts of data generated by the real-time monitoring system and using it to make rapid adjustments to the printing process.
This AI-driven feedback loop ensures that each print is as close to perfect as possible. However, creating such a system was no small feat. Freeform had to build a custom telemetry system that collects vast amounts of data at speeds never before seen in the industry. This data is then used to train the AI model, which continues to improve over time.
“To properly understand how to control the process, we needed datasets working at timescales that no one had,” said Lappas. “So we started building a state-of-the-art telemetry system, a platform that would collect curated, controlled, almost self-labeled datasets.”
These datasets allowed Freeform to bootstrap its AI model, which has become one of the key differentiators in their technology. As Lappas explained, the need for microsecond-level latency in their inference engine meant that no off-the-shelf solutions were available, forcing them to build the system from the ground up. The result is a powerful combination of GPUs and FPGAs that drive real-time adjustments, creating the fastest laser melting platform on the planet.
Building the Largest Metal Additive Dataset
One of the most exciting side effects of Freeform’s approach is that they are building the world’s largest dataset for metal additive manufacturing. This has attracted attention from major industry players like Boeing, which has invested in the company and will help guide them through the supplier qualification process.
With access to Nvidia’s H100 hardware and support from Boeing, Freeform is poised to expand rapidly, serving customers across industries including aerospace, automotive, and industrial sectors. According to Palitsch, Freeform is already working with clients to produce everything from rocket engine components to exhaust parts for Formula 1 cars.
The Future of Metal Additive Manufacturing
Freeform’s innovative approach to metal 3D printing is paving the way for widespread adoption of this technology in industries that rely heavily on metal production. By addressing the key challenges of quality, speed, and cost, Freeform is making it practical to use metal 3D printing at scale, offering a compelling alternative to traditional manufacturing methods.
With plans to scale up, build out the next generation of even faster printers, and grow the team to around 55 people in the next year, Freeform is set to revolutionize metal additive manufacturing. Their methodical, technical approach has already proven successful, and as Palitsch reflects on their journey, it’s clear they’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of what’s possible.
“We did things people said you couldn’t do,” said Palitsch. And with the combination of AI, real-time monitoring, and a data-driven approach, Freeform is positioned to push the boundaries of what’s possible in metal 3D printing.
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