Incus closes Series A investment round, adds former EOS CEO Adrian Keppler to team
December 21, 2021
Incus GmbH, Vienna, Austria, reports that it has closed a Series A investment round in Q4 2021 which included existing investor AM Ventures. Additionally, the company is also appointing Adrian Keppler, former CEO of EOS GmbH, as an investor and growth consultant.
Founded in 2019, Incus provides lithography-based metal manufacturing (LMM) technology, defined as a Vat Photopolymerisation process (VPP) by ISO/ASTM. With this Series A investment, Incus aims to accelerate the development of its LMM technology and further industrialise its current Additive Manufacturing solution.
In the last two years, Incus has grown its team from four to sixteen employees and Keppler has been brought on board to offer guidance on further growth. It is hoped that Keppler will help to transform Incus from a product to a solution business focusing on overall customer success.
“Any new industrial AM solution has to prove additional value,” commented Keppler. “The Incus LMM technology is competing with Metal Injection Moulding, Powder Metallurgy as well as Investment casting processes. We are working with world-leading companies active in the Incus core industries to transform applications from traditional to Additive Manufacturing.”
He continued, “These success stories are key for the further adoption of the LMM technology and development from niche to mainstream. I’m excited to join the Incus team, help them bring their technology to the forefront of the industry and to profitably grow the business.”
The company intends to team up with industry leaders to get feedback on their expectations in industrialised AM part production with a new AM machine concept including a larger building volume and simplification of post-processing steps. This evolution in combination with automation is anticipated to lower the cost per part and allow the manufacturing of larger parts at the same build speed.
“The continued support of our investors underscores the potential of our technology and enables us to expand our operational and R&D capability,” stated Dr Gerald Mitteramskogler, CEO of Incus. “Our production-scale printer is symbolic of our future goals. In sinter-based AM, post processing and the manual work it entails is time-consuming and we are planning to provide new solutions to simplify these steps, especially for smaller parts.”
Incus explains that the post-processing of smaller, complex additively manufactured green parts, specifically the cleaning step, can account for more than 50% of the total manufacturing costs due to manual labour. As a part of the company’s LMM technology, it is developing new ways of simplifying these steps to minimise labour via automation and reduce costs.
Johann Oberhofer, Managing Partner at AM Ventures, added, “Post-processing is one of the biggest pain points in Additive Manufacturing. We believe that with Incus and the LMM technology we have a manufacturing solution in our portfolio that can bring the industry closer to a practical solution for mass manufacturing.”
