If you’ve been sleeping on what’s happening in metal 3D printing, [Freeform](https://freeform.co/) is about to wake you up. This LA-based startup, founded by former SpaceX engineers Erik Palitsch and TJ Ronacher, just closed a [$67 million Series B](https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/19/freeform-raises-67m-series-b-to-scale-up-laser-ai-manufacturing/) with some seriously heavy backers — Nvidia’s NVentures, Founders Fund, Two Sigma Ventures, and more. Both [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/2026/02/19/freeform-raises-67m-series-b-to-scale-up-laser-ai-manufacturing/) and [SiliconANGLE](https://siliconangle.com/2026/02/19/freeform-reels-67m-3d-metal-printing-system/) covered the news on the same day, which tells you something about the buzz around this company.
Here’s what makes Freeform genuinely interesting: they don’t sell printers. Instead, they run their own autonomous factories and offer manufacturing-as-a-service. You send them a design, they print it. Their current system, called GoldenEye (yes, the James Bond naming convention is real), packs 18 lasers that fuse metal powder into precision parts. AI monitors every microsecond of the process, adjusting on the fly. And they’ve got Nvidia H200 GPU clusters sitting right inside the production facility, crunching simulation data to keep improving quality and throughput.
But the real headline is what’s coming next. Freeform plans to unveil Skyfall — billed as the world’s fastest laser melting platform — in the first half of 2026. We’re talking hundreds of lasers, thousands of kilograms of metal parts per day, and a 25x jump in capacity over their current setup. That’s not an incremental upgrade; that’s a completely different league.
What I find compelling is the business model itself. Most companies in this space try to sell you expensive hardware and let you figure it out. Freeform absorbs that complexity. They’re already shipping hundreds of mission-critical parts per week to customers, and the new funding is going toward hiring around 100 people and [expanding their facility](https://freeform.co/newsroom/update/delivering-on-the-promise-of-scale) to chew through a growing contract backlog.
When ex-rocket engineers build AI-controlled laser factories backed by Nvidia money, you pay attention. Freeform isn’t just another 3D printing startup — it’s closer to what manufacturing might actually look like in five years.
Leave a comment