A significant Series B funding is set to drive Fortify’s next steps in reinforced 3D printing.
Announced last month, the Series B is a $20 million equity round. Led by Cota Capital, with participation from Accel Partners, Neotribe Ventures, and Prelude Ventures, the round is Fortify’s biggest raise yet.
The Boston-based company had started 2019 off with a $2.5 million seed round, followed that summer by a $10 million Series A. Investors may sound familiar from those earlier raises. Neotribe and Prelude have participated in each of the rounds to date, and Accel led the Series A. It’s always a good sign when investors come back for more, signing even larger checks. It’s a sign something is working.
“The additive manufacturing market is rapidly expanding, and we believe that Fortify is unlocking one of the key barriers to growth of the industry: advanced materials,” said Bobby Yazdani, Founder and Partner at Cota Capital. “We are excited to collaborate and support the company as it continues to redefine advanced manufacturing.”
Of the Series B, Fortify explains:
“This round of capital will fuel team growth, accelerate expansion in high-value application spaces, and transition to volume manufacturing of the Flux Series 3D printers.”
Picking apart, let’s start with team growth.
Fortify has already been expanding its team actively for the last year and a half. The investment announcement noted that two of the “most notable hires” recently are “Paul Dresens, VP of Engineering, formerly of Desktop Metal, and Advisor Rob Stevens, formerly of GrabCad and Stratasys.” Now, if you go to the Fortify page, one of the first things to notice is a link to the careers page — so additional hiring is indeed a go. As of press time, there are 11 open postings, most in engineering. Sales and marketing also have several openings, which is good for actually getting these products out there.
Next up, the funding announcement says the money will target applications. That makes sense; it’s no good having great technology if it can’t actually do anything in the real world.
“Fortify has been focused on proving the viability of our product and market opportunity over the past 18+ months, and exceeded our goals set at the beginning of 2020.” said Josh Martin, CEO and Cofounder of Fortify. “This next round will expand our go-to-market footprint in key verticals such as injection mold tooling while enabling us to capture market share in end-use electronic devices.”
Finally, volume manufacturing of Flux Series 3D printers. As the AM industry these days is focusing on volume manufacturing, it helps to have appropriate volumes of the 3D printers themselves. It’s good to see that Fortify is digging its heels in here as well.
An additional note in the announcement adds:
“The round will be used to accelerate time to market on several high-value strategy material development programs between Fortify and its material partners.”
And:
“Fortify has previously announced partnerships with Henkel, DSM, Tethon3D, and will be making additional announcements over the course of 2021.”
It’s no surprise materials are a focus for Fortify, as high-strength 3D printing requires high-strength materials.
It sounds like Fortify is gearing up for some big announcements this month. Through Additive Integrity, I’ll be moderating a panel with Fortify’s CEO along with participants from Henkel, HP, and Fast Radius on April 13; chances are that will be a good time to hear about some of what’s coming up.
Via Fortify
