Arkema Invests in Adaptive3D, an American Start-up That Develops Premium Polymer Resins for Additive Manufacturing

COLOMBES, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Regulatory News:

Arkema (Paris:AKE) leads the Series B investment in Adaptive3D, an innovative company and premium additive manufacturing photopolymer resin supplier. This investment complements our expertise in UV liquid resin material design and our commitment to accelerate 3D printing manufacturing technology development.

Adaptive3D, through cutting-edge technologies, offers solutions enabling soft and elastomer end-products. The start-up sells photopolymer resins to enable additive manufacturing of tough, strain-tolerant, tear-resistant rubbers. Adaptive3D printable photo-resins are optimized for high-throughput manufacturing of functional complex 3-dimensional plastic and rubber parts in a wide range of applications in the consumer goods, healthcare, industrial, transportation and oil and gas markets.

Through its Sartomer’s activity and its pioneering N3xtDimension^® range of advanced UV curable liquid resins, Arkema and Adaptive3D have already succeeded in many technical and commercial developments. With this announcement, the companies aim to partner across the end points of an additive manufacturing ecosystem, from new material development, scaled specialty resin manufacturing, to functional end-use parts, to deliver market leading materials solutions at scale. Arkema, specializing in many other material technologies like photoinitiators and thio-based materials, can further enhance Adaptive3D product offerings through custom solutions.

With this investment in Adaptive3D, Arkema takes a new milestone that will create exciting opportunities for new applications in footwear, medical, automotive and electronic appliances, among others. With materials developed to best meet market needs, both consumers and producers stand to benefit from the specialty and sustainable high-performance solutions developed by Arkema and Adaptive3D.

“Challenging the aging model of injection-molded rubbers, Adaptive3D is now scaling production and distribution to deliver shelf-stable, print-stable, one-part photoresins that yield superior, manufactured end parts,” said Walter Voit, Ph, Founder and CEO of Adaptive3D. “Our resins enable customers to topologically optimize and micro-architect their polymeric products to provide a sustainable competitive advantage now.”

“Arkema is a global leader in supplying specialty materials to enable sustainable, innovative solutions to manufacturing technologies” said Sumeet Jain, the Senior Director of 3D Printing Worldwide at Arkema. “Adaptive3D photo-resins, based on Arkema materials and now validated in the market, further our customer-focused mission to reach into new application spaces. Adaptive3D delivers compelling materials properties with an ease of printing and post processing—a great step forward for the whole additive manufacturing field.”

Building on its unique set of expertise in materials science, Arkema offers a portfolio of first-class technologies to address ever-growing demand for new and sustainable materials. With the ambition to become in 2024 a pure player in Specialty Materials, the Group is structured into 3 complementary, resilient and highly innovative segments dedicated to Specialty Materials -Adhesive solutions, Advanced Materials, and Coating Solutions- accounting for some 80% of Group sales, and a well-positioned and competitive Intermediates segment. Arkema offers cutting-edge technological solutions to meet the challenges of, among other things, new energies, access to water, recycling, urbanization and mobility, and fosters a permanent dialogue with all its stakeholders. The Group reported sales of €8.7 billion in 2019, and operates in some 55 countries with 20,500 employees worldwide. www.arkema.com