3D METAL-PRINTING startup Seurat Technologies on Monday (Oct 30) hinted at potentially going public in the medium term, and said it had raised US$99 million in a funding round co-led by chip designer Nvidia’s venture capital arm.

With the latest Series C funding round, the company’s valuation will approach US$350 million, said a source.

“I expect that (going public) is on our cards ... 12-18 months is the earliest we would consider that ... potentially more like 24 or 36,” Seurat CEO James DeMuth said, adding that proceeds from the financing round will be used to deploy its production printers.

The fundraise, co-led by Nvidia’s NVentures and Capricorn’s Technology Impact Fund, brought in new investors Honda Motor and Cubit Capital. Existing backers, including Porsche and the venture capital units of Xerox Holdings and General Motors, also participated.

Seurat is looking to bring parts manufacturing, with its green energy-powered Area Printing technology, closer to customer factories around the world in a bid to re-shore supply chains and slash emissions.

Over the past couple of years, companies across industries globally have been looking to diversify supply chains to reduce their dependence on China to address business continuity concerns and as US-Sino trade tensions heat up.

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“Seurat’s local factory deployment model provides the industry with a solution to near-shore manufacturing and to increase the resiliency of supply chains,” said existing investor Porsche Automobil’s board member Lutz Meschke.

Seurat also has commitments to supply 59 tonnes of metal components for Siemens Energy’s turbines over a six-year period.

The company said earlier this month it had letters of intent from six customers totalling 4,000 tonnes of material, setting it up for US$750 million in revenue over several years. The orders would exceed the capacity of its pilot factory in Massachusetts, US. REUTERS