New venture brings next-generation additive manufacturing to Houston

new to hou

Two innovators are bringing additive manufacturing opportunities to Houston. Image via Getty Images

Last year, Sean Harkins introduced his friend Brien Beach to the world of additive manufacturing, and together the duo saw a business opportunity not only for themselves — but also for all of Houston.

Harkins had been working in 3D printing and additive manufacturing — the process of creating an object by building it one layer at a time — for the last decade and studied industrial design at the University of Houston. Working together, Harkins and Beach launched AmPd Labs, Houston’s next-generation additive manufacturing facility for industrial design and production.

“I met Brien through a mutual friend and we started discussing this idea of an additive manufacturing center in Houston,” says Harkins, president of AmPd Labs.

AmPD Lab’s focus is to break down traditional engineering design constraints, forcing the question “can this be additively manufactured?” The facility uniquely enables the printing of metals through metal binder jetting technology.

Last week, the company opened its first dedicated space near the Heights that was built to be the production studio as well as a place to bring in potential partners interested in additive manufacturing.

“There is a hill to climb with market acceptance, but we want to be the champions of that and Houston is just a great place to start this because it's the largest industrial city in America and there's so much industry here and there's tons of engineers in this community,” says Beach. “Houston is such a business-forward place. A ‘how can I help you’ type of business place.”

In addition to the launch of the new facility, Beach and Harkins visualize they will soon create a trade-school-type concept of “Digital Craftsmen” for additive manufacturing and offer an educational platform to help build a skilled workforce in this space.

“AM is not a fit for everything, but by working together, we can find those parts and products in which an AM solution can give you an operational or competitive advantage,” says Beach. “We will work with you through the design process, provide samples for testing, work through parts quality and qualification, and eventually find some products that you can permanently implement into your business.”

AmPd Labs will focus its business on these dedicated areas of impact:

Manufacturing technology choice
Part design
Material selection
Material performance
Assembly and workflow assessment
Business model impact
Supply chain impact
Increased data generation
Sales and marketing approach

Sean Harkins and Brien Beach opened AmPd Labs' space in the Heights last week. Images via ampdlabs.llc

This innovative Houston company has the national spotlight this week. Courtesy of re:3D

Houston 3D printing company selected inaugural competition

winner, winner

A Houston company has been announced among the winners of an inaugural seed fund expo competition.

Twelve startups were announced across four categories in the U.S. Small Business Administration's inaugural America’s Seed Fund Startup Expo 2022, which is taking place virtually Wednesday, May 25, from 11:30 am to 3:30 pm. Each of the 12 companies have developed innovative technologies with the help of SBIR grants.

“Every day, in communities across America, entrepreneurs are solving our nation’s most pressing challenges from climate change to feeding and healing the world. The SBA is committed to helping ensure that those ideas receive the necessary support from federal programs and innovation ecosystems so that they can commercialize and grow into resilient businesses,” says Administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman in a news release.

“With the launch of America's Seed Fund Expo, we will showcase exceptional entrepreneurs who have leveraged federal research and development funding through the SBIR Program in key industries and connect them to resources to advance their game-changing innovations right here in America,” she continues.

Houston-based Re:3D is among the companies selected to present at the expo. The complete list of participating companies is as follows:

AgTech and Food Security
- General Probiotics (Saint Paul, MN)
- Nucleic Sensing Systems (Saint Paul, MN)
- Shellfish Solutions d/b/a Blue Trace (Castine, ME)
Climate and Energy
- Amorphic Tech (Allentown, PA)
- FGC Plasma Solutions (Middleton, MA)
- Hydroplane (Lancaster, CA)
National Security and Defense
- BadVR (Pacoima, CA)
- Enduralock (Lenexa, KS)
- PSYONIC (Champaign, IL)
Supply Chain Resiliency
- Chromatic 3D Materials (Golden Valley, MN)
- Delta Development Team (Tucson, AZ)
- Re:3D (Houston, TX)

“The giants of future industries so often start as small business startups with big ideas," says Bailey DeVries, associate administrator of the office of investment and innovation, in the news release. "We know the public and private sectors must work together to nurture these small businesses with big ideas over many years so they may sustain and grow. America’s Seed Fund Startup Expo will lift up big ideas and provide a platform for our national innovation community to support the businesses of tomorrow."

The event is free to attend virtually, and anyone can register online at https://bit.ly/SeedFundExpoRSVP. The America’s Seed Fund is among the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs and is collaborates with 11 federal agencies, that collectively support more than $4 billion a year in federal research and development funding.

Roboze has closed its latest round of funding. Photo courtesy of Roboze

Houston 3D printing company closes latest round of funding, plans to hire

money moves

Roboze — an Italian high-performance 3D printing company with its U.S. headquarters in Houston — closed a multimillion-dollar round of funding this month with investments from an international group of leaders from diverse backgrounds.

Investors include Nova Capital, Lagfin, Andrea Guerra, Luigi De Vecchi, Roberto Ferraresi, Luca Giacometti, Denis Faccioli and others, according to a statement.

“We are honored to have a group of investors of this caliber, who strongly believe in the vision of Roboze and in the change of production paradigm that our technology is enabling by replacing metals and producing parts without wasting raw materials," Alessio Lorusso, founder and CEO of Roboze, said in a statement.

Roboze aims to put the funds towards the research and development of a new "super material" developed in the company's R&D facility in Italy, where the company is also building a new chemistry lab.

The company added that it will also be implementing an aggressive hiring plan in 2022, hiring 60 experts in the next 12 to 18 months in fields such as materials science, chemistry, business development, aerospace, medical devices, and field and applications engineering. Half of the new jobs will be based in the U.S. while the others are slated to be located in Italy and Germany.

Roboze specializes in manufacturing industrial 3D printing technology, such as its ARGO1000, which the company says is the largest printer of its kind. Through a process called Metal Replacement 3D Printing, the company uses super polymers and composites like PEEK and Carbon PEEK to create large-scale, end-use parts for an array of industries—from aeronautics equipment to medical manufacturing.

The company currently works with GE, Bosch, and Airbus, among others, and announced in the statement that manufacturing giant Siemens Energy acquired its first 3D printer from the company.

"We think additive manufacturing is playing a key role in digitalization and cost out in the energy sector. At Siemens Energy we evaluated many companies and found that Roboze technology for high temperature polymers has met our engineering qualification and expectations," Andrew Bridges, Service Frame Owner at Siemens Energy, said in a statement. "As a result, we acquired our first machine and look forward to expanding our relationship with Roboze."

Rice University bioengineers are designing a vascularized, insulin-producing implant for Type 1 diabetes. Photo by Jeff Fitlow courtesy of Rice University

Rice University bioengineers create insulin-producing medical device

health tech

A team of bioengineers at Houston's own Rice University have created an implant that can produce insulin for Type 1 diabetics. The device is being created by using 3D printing and smart biomaterials.

Omid Veiseh, an assistant professor of bioengineering, and Jordan Miller, associate professor of bioengineering, have been working on the project for three years and have received support from JDRF by way of a grant. Veiseh has a decade of experience developing biomaterials that protect implanted cell therapies from the immune system an Miller has spent more than 15 years specializing in 3D print tissues with vasculature, or networks of blood vessels.

"If we really want to recapitulate what the pancreas normally does, we need vasculature," Veiseh says in a news release. "And that's the purpose of this grant with JDRF. The pancreas naturally has all these blood vessels, and cells are organized in particular ways in the pancreas. Jordan and I want to print in the same orientation that exists in nature."

The challenge with Type 1 diabetes is balancing insulin intake, and studies estimate that less than a third of Type 1 diabetics in the U.S. are able to achieve target blood glucose levels consistently. Veiseh and Miller are working toward demonstrating that their implants can properly regulate blood glucose levels of diabetic mice for at least six months. To do that, they'll need to give their engineered beta cells the ability to respond to rapid changes in blood sugar levels.

"We must get implanted cells in close proximity to the bloodstream so beta cells can sense and respond quickly to changes in blood glucose," Miller says, adding that the insulin-producing cells should be no more than 100 microns from a blood vessel. "We're using a combination of pre-vascularization through advanced 3D bioprinting and host-mediated vascular remodeling to give each implant several shots at host integration."

Another challenge these experts are facing is a potential delay that can happen if the implant is too slow to respond to high or low blood sugar levels.

"Addressing that delay is a huge problem in this field," Veiseh says. "When you give the mouse — and ultimately a human — a glucose challenge that mimics eating a meal, how long does it take that information to reach our cells, and how quickly does the insulin come out?"

By incorporating blood vessels in their implant, he and Miller hope to allow their beta-cell tissues to behave in a way that more closely mimics the natural behavior of the pancreas.

Roboze's latest technology is the biggest on the market. Image courtesy of Roboze

Tech company unveils the 'world's largest 3D printer' in Houston

Texas sized

An Italian company that specializes in manufacturing industrial 3D printing technology has released the largest 3D printer on the market. And the company, which has its North American headquarters in Houston, chose the Bayou City to go live with the innovative product.

Roboze revealed the ARGO 1000 — a 3D printer that Roboze is calling the biggest in the world — which will be available for commercial distribution in 2022. The device has a heated chamber designed to produce large-scale parts with super polymers and composites for industrial applications, according to a news release.

"After years of specializing in super polymers and high-temperature composites and paving the future of industrial 3D printing, we are excited to introduce our flagship Production Series solution, ARGO 1000," says Alessio Lorusso, founder and CEO of Roboze, in the release. "Since we announced the opening of our new headquarters in North America earlier this year, we have grown our global customer base and invested in R&D to fulfill customer demand for a much larger 3D heated chamber super polymer printer."

Roboze announced its U.S. HQ just over a year ago. The company told InnovationMap that the new office was intended to grow Roboze's presence in oil and gas. The new industrial-sized printer too will impact the company's presence in the energy industry, as well as aerospace, transportation, medical, and automotive.

The ARGO 1000 has the ability to produce parts up to one cubic meter — about 40 inches by 40 inches by 40 inches. This size of output allows for on-demand manufacturing at scale. Additionally, the device uses more sustainable and high-performing super polymers and composites such as PEEK, Carbon PEEK and ULTEM ™ AM9085F, per the release.

The company's technology, including its industrial automation system and proprietary gear-based (beltless) technology, also allows for the production of parts that are six times more precise than those made with belt-driven printers, reports the release.

"We have gone far beyond prototypes and are now building custom components for miniature satellites, gears for military-grade vessels, and parts for companies developing the nation's sustainable infrastructure," says Lorusso in the release. "Our technologies ensure precise process control is maintained through the automation of every setting and calibration phase, resulting in continuous accuracy, repeatability, and the certification of every single part produced."

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10+ can't-miss Houston business and innovation events for April

where to be

It's time to look at what's on the agenda for April for Houston innovators — from pitch competitions to networking events.

Here's a roundup of events not to miss this month. Mark your calendars and register accordingly.

Note: This post might be updated to add more events.

April 4 — A.I. Digital and the Future of Energy

In the latest installment of UH Energy's "Critical Issues in Energy" Symposium Series, the speakers will take a deeper dive into the role of A.l. within the energy marketplace, specifically with what is being done with A.I. and what is capable of being done. In addition to this pivotal look at one crucial aspect of the energy transition, attendees will be afforded networking opportunities with speakers and distinguished guests, and food/refreshments will be provided.

The event is Tuesday, April 4, from 5:30 to 7:30 pm, at the University of Houston. Click here to register.

April 5 — Creating & Sustaining Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Join us for a fireside chat discussing the growth of entrepreneurship & a panel on demystifying the patent process.

The event is Wednesday, April 5, from 9 to 11:30 am, at the Ion. Click here to register.

April 5 — HAN Angel Academy

Learn angel investing best practices from Capital Factory co-founder and chairman, Gordon Daugherty in a half-day bootcamp format for accredited investors.

The event is Wednesday, April 5, from 11 am to 4 pm, at Rice University - Shell Auditorium. Click here to register.

April 11 — Future of Health Care

The Greater Houston Partnership's inaugural Future of Health Care event highlights one of the region's major industry sectors driven by world-class institutions and professional talent.

The event is Wednesday, April 11, from 10:30 am to 1:30 pm, at the Royal Sonesta. Click here to register.

April 11 — Idea to Impact: Navigating the Challenges to Commercializing University Discoveries

Amazing discoveries are made in university labs every day, yet most of them never develop into widely accessible commercial products. Why? And what can universities do to change that? As part of Rice University's "Betterment of the World" Scientia Lecture Series, join Rice Business on April 11 at 4 pm virtually or in person (Shell Auditorium, McNair Hall) to hear Yael Hochberg, Professor in Entrepreneurship at the Jones Graduate School of Business, as she discusses the challenges in commercializing university research discoveries.

The event is Wednesday, April 11, from 4 to 5 pm, at Rice University and online. Click here to register.

April 11 — Greentown Houston Climatetech Career Fair 2023

Greentown Labs and ALLY Energy welcomes all professionals, students, and soon-to-be graduates to join us for the Greentown Houston Career Fair, which focuses on connecting professionals directly with Greentown Houston’ network of founders, CEOs, and cutting-edge climatetech startups looking for bright and eager talent.

The event is Tuesday, April 11, from 4:30 to 6:30 pm, at Greentown Houston. Click here to register.

April 15 — Earth Day Clothing Swap Party with Sustainable Fashion & Earth Month HTX

A clothing swap is a fun, alternative solution to thrift shopping or secondhand fashion that allows you to clean out the clothes you no longer wear and in return bring home new additions to your closet - all for free and hosted by Houston startup RESTATEMENT.

The event is Saturday, April 15, from noon to 5 pm, at Patterson Park. Click here to register.

April 17-18 — AI Powered Renewable Energy Workshop

AI Houston Institute of Rice University in partnership with Ion is getting together experts from academia and industry working on the application of artificial intelligence in solving some of the most complex challenges facing the Energy industry as it transitions into alternative sources of energy that are green and sustainable.

The event is Monday, April 17, to Tuesday, April 18, at the Ion. Click here to register.

April 19 — Investor Studio Series: Dream Big Ventures x Ion x Mendoza Ventures

Underrepresented founders face a lot of barriers, including rarely seeing VC dollars. However, Dream Big Ventures and Mendoza Ventures are looking to change those statistics to help diverse founders succeed. Join Dream Big Ventures Founder and CEO Staci LaToison, and Mendoza Ventures Co-Founders Senofer Mendoza and Adrian Mendoza, as they discuss the growth of women and Latinas in Fintech, AI, and Cybersecurity in this fireside chat.

The event is Wednesday, April 19, from 5 to 7 pm, at the Ion. Click here to register.

April 19 — The H. Albert Napier Rice Launch Challenge Championships

Join Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and support Rice University student ventures at the H. Albert Napier Rice Launch Challenge (NRLC) Championships on Wednesday, April 19. Five student finalists will pitch their ventures to compete for the chance to win a share of $100,000 in equity-free funding.

The event is Wednesday, April 19, from 5:30 to 9 pm, at Rice University. Click here to register.

April 20 — Female Founders and Funders

Calling all rockstar female founders and investors in the Houston area. Mark your calendars for this month's Female Founders and Funders meetup. Coffee and breakfast is provided and the event is free to attend.

The event is Thursday, April 20, from 9 to 10 am, at Sesh Coworking. Click here to register.

Texas researchers name ancient beaver fossil after favorite Texas gas station

Beaver Country

The legend of a treasured gas station chain continues with a new chapter: a rediscovered beaver fossil is being named after Buc-ee’s.

The ancient animal was named Anchitheriomys buceei (A. buceei) by Steve May, a research associate at the University of Texas Jackson School of Geosciences and lead author of the Palaeontologia Electronica paper that describes the beaver.

A. buceei fossils were rediscovered by researchers in UT Austin’s collections and include fossils from six different Texas sites. May decided to name A. buceei after Buc-ee’s after spotting a “This is Beaver Country” billboard in 2020 that reminded him of the fossils he was studying at the time.

Though Buc-ee’s was founded in 1982, CEO Arch “Beaver” Alpin III said in a press release that his business’ history is longer than he thought, and that he may “need to rethink [their] beginnings.”

Occurrences of A. buceei can be found between 15 and 22 million years ago along the state’s gulf coast. At first glance, they don’t appear much different from current native Texas beavers. But according to the report’s co-author Matthew Brown, who is also the director of the Jackson School’s vertebrate paleontology collections, they are nearly 30 percent bigger than today’s beavers.

A partial skull fossil of the beaver was originally collected in 1941 by paleontologists. One of the original finders was Texas A&M University museum curator Curtis Hesse, who passed away four years later before he could name it a new species and publish his study.

More information about A. buceei can be found on UT Austin’s website.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

5 most popular innovation stories in Houston this week

what's trending

Editor's note:Another week has come and gone, and it's time to round up the top headlines from the past few days. Trending Houston tech and startup news on InnovationMap included Houston innovators to know, news from Rice University, and more.

3 Houston innovators to know this week

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Gaurab Chakrabarti of Solugen, Sandy Guitar of HX Venture Fund, and Cameron Owen of rBIO. Photos courtesy

In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — from synthetic biology to venture capital — recently making headlines in Houston innovation. Read more.

Annual student startup competition in Houston names teams for 2023

Here's what student teams from around the world were invited to compete in the Rice Business Plan Competition. Photo via rice.edu

Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship has named the 42 student startup teams that were extended invitations to compete in the 23rd annual Rice Business Plan Competition

The 2023 startup competition will take place on Rice University campus May 11 to 13, and the teams representing 37 universities from six countries will pitch to investors, mentors, and other industry leaders for the chance to win funding and prizes. Last year's RBPC doled out nearly $2 million in investment prizes. Read more.

Med tech firm expands footprint, Houston innovator assumes new role, and more local innovation news

Proxima Clinical Research has announced an office expansion — and more Houston innovation news. Photo via Twitter

Houston's innovation ecosystem has had some big news this month, from new job titles for Houston innovators to expanding office space.

In this roundup of Houston startup and innovation news, a Houston organization expands its footprint in the TMC, Rice University opens applications for a cleantech accelerator, and more. Read more.

Houston biotech company expands leadership team

Cemvita has some news regarding its C-level execs. Photo courtesy of Cemvita

An innovative Houston startup that's working with energy companies to decarbonize their operations has made changes to its C-suite.

Tara Karimi, who co-founded Cemvita with her brother Moji, has transition to the company's chief science officer. Liz Dennett has been hired to Karimi's previous role of CTO. The changes enable Karimi to focus on leading Cemvita's scientific research and development efforts as well as participating in driving innovation within the biotech industry as a whole, according to the company's press release.

"I'm excited to take on the role of chief science officer at Cemvita and what it represents for our company's growth," says Karimi in the release. "As chief science officer, I look forward to shaping policy and driving the conversation around the role of biotechnology in the energy transition." Read more.

Rice University announces leader of new materials and nanotechnology institute

Lane Martin will lead the Rice Advanced Materials Institute beginning this summer. Photo courtesy of Rice

A recently established institute at Rice University has revealed its new leader.

The Rice Advanced Materials Institute has named Lane Martin as director. Martin will also serve as Welch Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering in the George R. Brown School of Engineering. He begins both roles on July 1.

“Lane is everything we expect our faculty to be — hard-working, committed to excellence, dedicated to students and collaborative across disciplines,” says Howard R. Hughes Provost Amy Dittmar in a news release. “I look forward to seeing Rice faculty and students reap the benefits of his leadership.” Read more.

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