Ascend Manufacturing closes seed round, lands major project with NNSA
The founder Justin Nussbaum said Ascend was selected to work on a top-secret project with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to manufacture small, complex parts.
What if you could print thousands of complex parts in a single day, using materials no one else can? That’s the challenge Justin Nussbaum set out to solve.
Several major issues plague the domestic manufacturing industry.
For starters, lead times on new and emerging products are long, supply chain reliability is constantly changing, 3D printing technologies construct items in layers, and molding can be costly upfront.
“We needed to build a kind of next generation of 3D printing that would allow us to manufacture at much higher speeds, completing thousands of parts per day with these materials that nobody else can print with,” he said.
Sound like an impossible task? Nussbaum said it occasionally felt that way. But his company, Ascend Manufacturing, has turned a corner, secured seed funding, and is now delivering products to customers using his innovative technology every day.
The Ascent
Nussbaum first became interested in 3D printing during his undergrad at the University of South Florida. That passion carried all the way through obtaining his Ph.D., and even led him to discover some new methods for 3D printing.
The real turning point that pushed him from researcher to entrepreneur was the National Science Foundation (NSF) Innovation Corps program.
“NSF I Corps gave us $50,000 to travel the world and interview people literally,” Nussbaum said. “Over the course of about seven weeks, we interviewed about 120 potential customers and learned the biggest problems facing the manufacturing industry.”
Here are some of the issues he identified:
- Waste
- Lead times
- Material costs/ availability
- Supply chain reliability
Nussbaum walked away from NSF I-Corps with the motivation to build a next-generation manufacturing technology that solved those specific industry needs.
How it Works
The two most common advanced manufacturing techniques on the market today are 3D printing, which uses a hot nozzle to lay down filament one layer at a time. And injection molding, which requires a fleet of molds to be manufactured upfront. Both of which can be expensive.
“We took out the laser and/or nozzle. Instead, we have a bed of plastic powder, a really high-intensity projector, and we’re now forming and fusing that whole 2D layer all at once,” he said.
Nussbaum calls the system “Large Area Projection Stintering” or “LAPS” for short. He also mentioned additional technology included in LAPS, such as multiple imaging angles and process monitoring.
“We can compare it to our input CAD file, and know instantly when it comes out of the machine whether or not it meets spec. So we’re creating born certified parts, which is very unique to the manufacturing industry,” he said.
Nussbaum went through multiple iterations developing the technology, finding projectors that are strong enough, and testing various materials.
“We’ve continued developing LAPS to where it’s at today, and now we’re creating commercial products that we’re ready to sell to our customers,” he said.
How it Scales
“There’s a lot of innovation in manufacturing that happens around here, and the word of mouth has been beneficial to us,” Nussbaum said. “Once you can do something that nobody else in the world can, the world travels pretty quickly.”
While most start-ups struggle to land their first customers, Nussbaum’s challenge is on the scaling side. He said customers are knocking at the door. He’s working to figure out how to build capacity quickly to meet that demand.
Thankfully, Nussbaum said solutions are around the corner. Recently, Ascend Manufacturing closed a seed funding round. Nussbaum started the raise a little more than one year ago.
They received the opportunity through Launch Tennessee to pitch at the InvestTN investors event, ahead of the 3686 conference.
“We were able to find enough investors and close our rounds within 10 days after that pitch,” he said.
And that’s not the only exciting news for the Ascend Manufacturing team. Nussbaum said that he and his team were selected to work on a top-secret project with the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to create some parts.
“I can’t go into detail about what those parts are, but the NNSA has been our largest customer to date. We can print with these materials that other people can’t, which require really unique, complex shapes that are difficult to manufacture in any other way,” he said.
The Tie to Tennessee
Nussbaum moved to Oak Ridge in 2018 to join the Innovation Crossroads program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). He said the cohort was an integral part of Ascend Manufacturing’s success.
ORNL’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility is known across advanced manufacturing circles as one of the premier locations to develop new types of 3D printing and manufacturing technologies.
“They brought us up to Oak Ridge to work with the world’s experts in 3D printing. The program also provides us with about half a million dollars of non-dilutive funding sources to develop our technology,” he said.
While Innovation Crossroads was a key part of getting Nussbaum in the door, it was the community resources that helped him decide to stay in East Tennessee long-term.
“We fell in love with the support of the area. We received services from PYA (the power behind Teknovation) after the Ballard Innovation Award, lots of resources from the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center, Launch Tennessee, the cost of living is lower, and everyone is just so welcoming,” he said.
Looking toward the future, he plans to continue developing Ascend Manufacturing from an East Tennessee base.
“The whole purpose is to build a company that provides a more economical and quicker turnaround way for our customers to produce their parts,” he said.
Read more about Ascend Manufacturing.
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