UBQ Materials’ plastic replacement product attracts $170M from impact investor TPG Rise

UBQ Materials, which claims it has developed a plastic-like material made from 100% unsorted household waste, has raised a $170 million funding round led by TPG Rise, TPG’s global impact investing platform, made through TPG Rise Climate, the firm’s dedicated climate investing fund, and The Rise Funds, its multi-sector impact investing fund. The financing round […]

Everything is accelerating in the exponential age

Buckle up, it’s going to be a wild ride. The pace of change over the last few decades is only set to accelerate in the coming years, as improvements in biology, medicine, spacecraft, manufacturing, software and more continue to transform the very foundations of society, economics and politics. We cover these innovations pretty much daily […]

Fractory raises $9M to rethink the manufacturing supply chain for metalworks

The manufacturing industry took a hard hit from the Covid-19 pandemic, but there are signs of how it is slowly starting to come back into shape — helped in part by new efforts to make factories more responsive to the fluctuations in demand that come with the ups and downs of grappling with the shifting […]

ICON lands $207M Series B to construct more 3D-printed homes after seeing 400% YoY revenue growth

Creating single-family homes for the homeless using 3D printing robotics. Developing construction systems to create infrastructure and habitats on the moon, and eventually Mars, with NASA. Delivering what is believed to be the largest 3D-printed structure in North America — a barracks for Texas Military Department. These are just some of the things that Austin, […]

Diamond Age raises $8M to speed up home construction with 3D printing and robot arms

Bay Area-based Diamond Age this week announced that it has raised $8 million. The seed round is led by Prime Movers Lab and Alpaca VC and features a slew of additional firms, including Dolby Family Ventures, Calm Ventures, Gaingels, Towerview Ventures, GFA Venture Partners and Suffolk Construction. The startup looks to put a slew of […]

Desktop Metal is acquiring industrial 3D printing company ExOne

As part of its earnings call this week, Desktop Metal announced plans to acquire ExOne. The Pennsylvania-based firm creates a variety of different industrial 3D printers for industries like aerospace, automotive, medical and defense. More recently, we wrote about the company’s portable 3D printing factories, which are effectively mobile additive manufacturing stations built inside of […]

廃棄された「オレンジの皮」を3Dプリント!? その小さなランプに独創的な材料が選ばれた理由

廃棄されたオレンジの皮からつくった素材を材料に、小型ランプを3Dプリントする──。そんな独創的なプロジェクトがKickstarterで資金調達を開始した。開発したのはイタリアのデザイン事務所。いったいなぜオレンジを材料に選んだのだろうか？
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