Metal additive manufacturing firm Desktop Metal announced its acquisition of a startup company that pioneered systems to deposit multiple materials with adhesive binders during the 3D printing process.
The suburban Boston company said Belgium-based Aerosint would operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of Desktop Metal and continue to be led by Edouard Moens de Hase and Matthias Hick, who founded the company five years ago.
Desktop said Aerosint’s proprietary process forms a single, multi-material powder layer by selectively depositing two or more powders with adhesive binders. It can be integrated into any powder-bed additive manufacturing process and can support high-speed printing of metals, polymers, and ceramics.
The technology also offers the potential to unlock a range of new applications for 3D printing with reduced waste, lower material costs, and less post-processing time required.
Desktop officials said they expect to integrate Aerosint’s products and services into its platforms within two years. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“This transaction advances our strategy to own differentiated print technologies that enable an expanding set of AM 2.0 applications at scale,” Desktop Metal founder and CEO Ric Fulop said in a statement. “Multi-material printing is the next frontier in AM. Today, people print parts, but in the future, people will look to print full products, which may be composed of multiple materials.”