3 min read November 2023 — James DeMuth, founder, CEO and Co-Inventor of Seurat, sat down for an interview with Invest: to talk about Seurat’s approach to enabling mass production through metal additive manufacturing while reducing carbon emissions, their focus on sustainable energy sources, and their efforts towards establishing localized production facilities.
What have been some major highlights for Seurat over the last year?
In the past year, we have experienced significant growth with over 100 employees, adding approximately 10 to 15 new team members every quarter. Our focus has been on deploying our first-generation machine, the Alpha Printer, in our pilot factory. This factory will house three machines and have the capacity to print around 25 metric tons of metal annually.
Essentially, we are establishing an application center where we can qualify materials and parts for our customers, paving the way for series production. While the pilot factory won’t handle full-volume series production, it serves as a crucial steppingstone. We have already identified various use cases where our additive manufacturing technology offers price points and production rates that can replace conventional manufacturing methods, starting with machining and expanding to casting and forging.
What makes Greater Boston a good fit for companies such as yours and what are the opportunities that you are looking to capitalize on?
Boston is an ideal location for talent in automation, high-temperature operations, semiconductor equipment manufacturing and optics. It has a strong foundation of building blocks that align with our goals. MIT has been instrumental in developing additive manufacturing companies for many years, making Boston a hub for 3D printing expertise. The area is known for its automation, robotics, and control capabilities, as well as its involvement in semiconductor device manufacturing, equipment manufacturing, and optics for the telecom industry. Leveraging these talent pools and capabilities is crucial for our success.
When comparing the complexity of the machines we build to other industries, they are more intricate than automotive systems and are closer in complexity to the semicon industry. These machines have a substantial size and cost, often reaching multiple million dollars. As a result, they require a diverse skill set, including expertise in thermal, mechanical, optical, electrical, controls, and software aspects. In fact, in the next 10 years, we anticipate that approximately 80% of our workforce will consist of software engineers, given the importance of data sets and software platforms in our operations.
What industries or sub-sectors have you identified that could be part of your strategic portfolio?
When people think about 3D printing or additive manufacturing, industries like aerospace and medicine often come to mind. These industries have already made significant advancements in additive manufacturing and are willing to pay the higher prices associated with it. However, their volumes are relatively low, although we anticipate growth in the space with the increasing number of rocket launches. For these industries, the focus is on finding solutions that work at low volumes. Once we have qualified their materials, we can move on to qualifying their parts.
On the other hand, we see great interest and excitement from industries that have yet to fully explore the potential of additive manufacturing. These industries include automotive, energy, and consumer electronics. They haven’t been served extensively by the additive industry thus far. Although these industries may require lower price points, their volumes are immense, presenting a significant market opportunity. Our goal is to lower costs while meeting their requirements and creating a compelling business case.
How is Seurat Technologies helping Greater Boston achieve its sustainability goals?
At a high level, Seurat is focused on enabling technology for mass production known as Area Printing®. This technology is fully electrically driven, allowing us to be agnostic to the energy source. Initially, we work with local utilities to ensure that our energy comes from non-CO2-emitting sources. However, our long-term vision is to co-deploy energy generation with our production facilities. This approach guarantees energy reliability and security, which is crucial for our 24/7 operations. Additionally, it allows us to contribute to the pool of green energy and support the transition to sustainable practices.
In terms of what we can do, let’s consider the machining aspect. Machining represents approximately 46% of the $2.5 trillion manufacturing market for metal parts. By utilizing our Gen-1 machine, we can address a significant portion of that market, specifically for machine parts. Compared to traditional machining processes, our printing process requires significantly less feedstock material. In machining, around 60% to 90% of the starting material is turned into shavings. By reducing waste and utilizing less starting material through printing, we can mitigate approximately 40 tons of CO2 emissions for every ton of parts associated with the production of different alloys like steel, titanium, and aluminum.
We are committed to working with our supply chain partners to ensure that our energy sources for recycling are greener and renewable. Furthermore, for additive manufacturing we have the opportunity to combine multiple parts, lightweight components, and reduce overall material usage. This results in significant emissions reduction. By deploying printing factories near customer sites and producing parts on-demand, we also reduce warehousing and shipping costs, further contributing to sustainability efforts. Taking into account all these factors nets out to a potential GHG emissions reduction potential of 100 million tons per year by 2030.
How is Seurat Technologies positioning itself to capitalize on reshoring and nearshoring?
Our business model primarily focuses on contract manufacturing, and we recently announced a partnership with Siemens Energy. This partnership involves long-term production agreements for a specific part, totaling approximately 60 tons over six years. This translates to an annual capacity of around 10 tons, which can be produced by a single machine. It’s worth noting that some parts have been manufactured for decades and will continue to be made for many more years, although agreements are typically signed for fixed periods, usually ranging from three to seven years.
How is Seurat Technologies leveraging its partnerships with global leaders in tech for the company’s growth strategy and to add value for your clients?
The automotive market presents significant opportunities for us, with companies like DENSO, General Motors, and Porsche being major players. We are currently mapping out our strategy to enter this market and are excited about the journey ahead as weight changes in automotive components can lead to substantial reductions in emissions. For example, working with Siemens Energy, we can print parts that make their systems more efficient in converting heat into electrons. This applies to various energy sources, including steam and hydrogen turbines. Collaborating with Siemens energy also opens doors for future partnerships in deploying energy sources such as next-gen nuclear or geothermal, where their systems can generate electricity to power our printers, creating a mutually beneficial circle.
We are not only focusing on the automotive sector, but also exploring interesting applications in electronics, consumer electronics, and tooling. Tooling, specifically, involves components that are typically machined today, including injection molding tools and manifolds. By leveraging additive manufacturing, we can embed conformal cooling channels into these parts, drastically reducing cycle times. This enables faster production, with a single piece of tooling being able to produce two or three times as fast or even more in some cases.
What are the challenges that you are seeing in the Greater Boston region and how are you working to navigate through them?
Navigating the capital markets can be challenging, given recent fluctuations. However, companies continuously fundraise throughout their lifecycle, from inception to well beyond going public. We have been making significant progress on multiple fronts and have been fortunate to experience favorable hiring booms and have maintained high employee retention rates.
At Seurat, we understand the importance of building not only a great technological machine but also a strong people machine. We believe in the concept of “people2 + technology” as solving any people-related issues can have an exponential impact on the overall success of the company. Therefore, we emphasize fostering a collaborative and focused environment, placing people at the core of everything we do.
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