Disabled Veteran launches Kupros to transform electronics manufacturing
Kupros is a participant in the fall 2025 Spark Cleantech Accelerator at the UT Research Park in Knoxville.
At 17, Ian Ramsdell graduated from high school in Lynn, Massachusetts, and joined the U.S. Navy—a decision that set him on a path from veteran to deep tech entrepreneur. Today, he is the founder and CEO of Kupros, an advanced materials start-up pioneering 3D-printed electronics.
Teknovation met Ramsdell when he traveled from Indiana to join the Spark Cleantech Accelerator at the University of Tennessee Research Park at Cherokee Farm. His company has developed a breakthrough copper filament, “Cu29,” which enables the 3D printing of electronic circuits—a technology originally discovered at a Department of Defense (DoD) national laboratory.
While Ramsdell has already delivered a batch of materials to several high-profile early adopters, he is seeking additional industry applications, connections, and opportunities.
Rooted in Service
Service defines Ramsdell’s story.
He enlisted in 1999, even completing his military processing on the same day as his senior prom. Over the next decade, he deployed to Iraq, supported Hurricane Katrina relief, and participated in counter-piracy operations—all while battling injuries that eventually led to his medical retirement as a disabled veteran.
“I spent the last 18 months of my military career recovering at Walter Reed,” Ramsdell said. “Then, I was medically retired, and that started my journey re-entering civilian life.”
Finding a New Purpose
While at Walter Reed, Ramsdell discovered adaptive hockey. He played on a team full of other disabled veterans. So, upon re-entry, he wasted no time bringing that program to his local area.
He cofounded and launched the New England Warriors with a fellow disabled veteran and paralympian, Christy Gardner, a chapter of USA Warriors, to support disabled veterans and children. He and his wife, Nichole, expanded the program into a total of three states.
“A lot of veterans feel sorry for themselves after getting injured,” he said. “But then you look at these children, and many of them have never known life without disability.”
Ramsdell said the program gave him a renewed sense of purpose and a deeper connection within the community.
The Early Companies
This renewed sense of purpose carried Ramsdell into higher education at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, where he majored in business administration with an entrepreneurship and finance concentration.
Along the way, he explored creative ventures, including the launch of his first company, which was a custom knife-making business. In the span of a few years, he donated $20,000 worth of blades to non-profits, auctions, and veteran programs.
Then, out of scrap metal and wires, he also invented a zip-line “gimmick” for pickup trucks.
“My advice to other disabled founders is not to let your disability set your limits,” he said.
These two early companies put Ramsdell on the map in the military circles as an innovator and entrepreneur.
The Founding of Kupros
Military veterans form a close-knit community of individuals. One of his friends introduced him to a startup studio program through the Department of Defense (now, Department of War) National Security Innovation Network called “Foundry”.
Foundry is a five-month startup studio that increases technology, transfer, and transition (T3) of U.S. Government inventions by matching technologies and inventors with entrepreneurs interested in starting a high-tech company.
The DoD assigned Ramsdell and his team a technology developed at the U.S. Navy’s Weapons Lab at the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC Crane), and challenged them to find market fits. The patented technology that Ramsdell was assigned was a copper filament for 3d printing electronic circuits.
“This material is very cool and we quickly realized the amount of potential for it,” Ramsdell said. “Our material is a nanomaterial with copper suspended in an all-metal matrix with a proprietary process and additive.”
From there, his company, which has been coined “Kupros,” which is a Greek term for the metal “copper,” symbolizing strength, value, and craftsmanship, has only grown.
They have enrolled in several accelerator programs, pitch competitions, secured non-dilutive funding, and have even delivered materials to their first round of customers.
What differentiates this material?
The thing that makes Kupros’ copper filament so fascinating for various industry applications is the fact that it will allow printers to 3D print around electric circuits.
The start-up team spent all of 2022 and 2023 figuring out how to make the material. They spent the latter half of 2024 validating it on commercial off-the-shelf 3d printers, and all of 2025 delivering it to early adopters and new customers.
“Our material can integrate electronic components like circuits, sensors, antennas, shielding, EMI or radiation shielding, all into polymer or plastic parts directly as they’re being manufactured,” Ramsdell said. “So this also gives you the ability to print curved electronics, or non-planar electronics, which is very difficult or almost impossible to do.”
Ramsdell said that Kupros had pre-paid pre-sales with several major companies and organizations, including KBR, Northrop Grumman, NASA, Boeing, DEVCOM, Youngstown State University, and more.
However, the specific projects and applications that each company has identified as use-cases for the material are off the record.
Check out some of Kupros’ product offerings and materials.
For more information, visit the Kupros website.
📸 Featured photo courtesy of the STRAC Innovets Pitch Competition.
Like what you've read?
Forward to a friend!