Fluent Metal Startup Launches With Focus on Liquid Metal 3D Printing

Startup Fluent Metal says it is developing production-grade liquid metal printing to remove barriers to entry into metal additive manufacturing (AM), while enabling unmatched scalability and process tunability. The company is launching out of stealth with an additional $3.2 million in venture capital funding, led by E15 with participation from Pillar VC and other industry angels, bringing the total funding to $5.5 million.

The company says its drop-on-demand approach is compatible with most metals, including refractories, and enables the creation of parts in a single-step process, thereby minimizing variability. It is also energy efficient, using less starting material and producing no waste — making it far more sustainable than current powder-based metal 3D printers.

“Drop-on-demand technology is an elegant approach to create complex metal components,” says Peter Schmitt, Fluent Metal CEO. “Whether it's prototype iterations of an idea or production runs of a single part, Fluent Metal will provide customers with great operational and material flexibility. This freedom will unlock new creativity and problem-solving abilities across industries.”

According to the company, existing metal AM technology has come to accept the extensive industrial scale overhead required to operate this equipment safely. Fluent Metal is developing an alternative lean overhead process, to make it more sustainable, operationally efficient and functional, using an inkjet printer-like approach.

Functionality of Drop-on-Demand

It uses wire as the starting material and produces no waste, enabling true multimetal printing. It’s possible for even high-value metals to be intricately combined, creating properties never before possible. Complex shapes such as fully enclosed voids and internal channels are possible due to the inkjet-like printhead and parallel throughput.

Operational Efficiency

Fluent Metal’s approach is designed to operate safely on a typical manufacturing floor or even in a prototyping shop, without the need for clean rooms or expensive safety measures. Additionally, material changeover is designed to be easy as plug-n-play, reducing setup efforts and enabling more machine uptime.

Method for Sustainability

According to the company, the approach produces no waste and uses less energy than powder-based technologies.

“As the manufacturing industry evolves in response to the changing needs of global supply chains and sustainability demands, we need novel approaches to drive creativity and expand our collective conception about what’s possible,” says Philip Liang, E15 managing partner. “In the near term, Fluent Metal will spark the imagination of designers, engineers and technologists to consider how rapid, on-demand production of custom metal parts could transform their capabilities. At scale, this approach will revolutionize the entire footprint and direction of industrial manufacturing."

Fluent Metal is led by industry veterans from Desktop Metal, Vulcan Forms and the MIT Media Lab.