Equispheres raises CAD $30M in funding round to scale up metal powder production
Equispheres, a materials science company based in Ottawa, Canada, has raised CAD $30 million (~USD $21M) through a Series B investment round. The funding round was led by HG Ventures, an investor firm specializing in advanced materials and sustainable tech, and saw participation from Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) and BDC, a Canadian bank for entrepreneurs, among other undisclosed investors.
The infusion of funding will enable the Canadian company to scale up its production capacity and pursue research and development efforts with strategic industry partners. Equispheres, which specializes the development of high performance, mono-sized metal powders for AM, says it will focus its new investment on improving reactors for higher volume and more cost efficient production and expanding its team by creating high quality jobs. The $30 million investment will also enable the company to develop application support services for the automotive, aviation, space and defense industries to drive AM applications for its materials.
The Series B funding round consisted of $10 million in equity investment from HG Ventures, as well as an $8 million grant from SDTC, $5 million in subordinated financing from BDC and $7 million in undisclosed funding. Equispheres first revealed it had raised $8 million from the government agency SDTC back in January, after it was named as one of 14 Canadian companies to receive support as part of a strategy to establish Canada as a “global leader in innovation.”
“We are extremely excited to have HG Ventures as a partner,” said Kevin Nicholds, President and CEO of Equispheres. “Their extraordinary combination of research capability and venture capital experience made them an ideal partner to understand both the technical and market potential of our product across the transportation industry. We are also grateful to have the support of the Canadian government, enabling us to leverage investor financing to achieve our objective of providing a high-quality product at volume levels the marketplace demands.”
Equispheres has achieved some notable milestones in the AM materials area: the company successfully demonstrated that their metal powder outperformed in aerospace quality tests, and it also developed an aluminum alloy powder for binder jetting, which has been a notoriously challenging thing to accomplish in the AM industry.
