November 12, 2020
Free Form Fibers announces the completion of a successful fundraising round that will drive commercialization efforts.
Free Form Fibers has concluded a $2.5 million financing round to build additional production capacity for pure fiber and powder materials produced using its advanced, patented Rapid Laser-assisted Chemical Vapor Deposition (R-LCVD) process. “This is the next step in our trajectory to bring the purest possible materials to market for advanced applications such as jet engines and nuclear power plants” said John Schneiter, Chairman of Free Form Fibers and CEO for the past 11 years. He added, “While our focus has been on silicon carbide fiber and powder for high temperature applications, our ability to change materials simply by changing the input gases to the process is critical to market flexibility.” Shay Harrison, Free Form Fibers’ new CEO, said “We have been developing and refining our production process with the support of local investors and numerous governmental technology development grants from agencies such as the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and this new investment is the next key step in building important production capacity in the United States for high performance fibers and powders for next-gen applications like ceramic matrix composites.”
James Besser, Managing Member at Manchester Management and a lead investor in the round, said “We are excited to participate in the growth of an important materials company that is showing the world what a combination of deep understanding, hard work and tenacity can achieve. This company is accelerating — in a handful of years — what some of the world’s largest technology giants have been working on for over forty years. We are pleased to participate in its scale-up.”
About Free Form Fibers
Free Form Fibers, in Saratoga Springs, NY, is a supplier of the world’s purest fibers and powders for next-generation composites. From silicon carbide for jet engines, nuclear plants and high power electronics, to silicon nitride for hypersonics, to boron for airframe and spacecraft light-weighting, Free Form Fibers’ high performance fibers and powders exhibit the best material properties possible. Derived from specialty gases developed for the semiconductor industry over the past 50+ years, Free Form Fibers’ materials are produced using patented technology under development for almost 20 years. Most striking is that the same production hardware is capable of producing a wide palette of materials in fiber form – simply changing the input gases changes the fibers produced.
For more information, visit www.fffibers.com or call 518-690-0396.