Boston Materials gains $13.5 million for Z-axis Fiber expansion, supply chain partnership establishment

Boston Materials Inc. (Billerica, Mass., U.S.) founded in 2016 to produce its new class of composite materials, Z-axis Fiber, has announced $13.5 million in new funding. The investment was led by AccelR8 and Diamond Edge Ventures, the U.S.-based corporate venturing arm of global carbon fiber manufacturer Mitsubishi Chemical Group (Tokyo, Japan). With this funding, Boston Materials is accelerating its expansion into the semiconductor market, building from its existing footprint in the aerospace market.

“There is an urgent and quickly ramping need for advanced energy transfer materials. This new class of materials maximize performance and efficiency across data centers, airplanes, electrified vehicles and beyond,” says Anvesh Gurijala, CEO of Boston Materials. “We are aggressively expanding our existing manufacturing capabilities and accelerating global product deployment to meet this demand.”

The company’s underlying patented technology, Z-axis Fiber uses vertically aligned carbon fibers to create materials with enhanced energy transfer properties. Highly differentiated advanced materials, commercialized under the ZRT tradename, are reported to solve critical challenges relating to thermal management and vehicle weight reduction across trillion-dollar industries, including semiconductors, aerospace and electrified vehicles. (In 2022, Boston Materials collaborated with Textron Systems on hypersonic vehicle thermal protection systems and expanded into the hydrogen fuel cells market with its ZRT bipolar plates.) Boston Materials is backed by scaled manufacturing technologies, facilities primed for high-volume production and validation in performance-critical applications across high-growth sectors. 

The $13.5 million equity investment round also saw participation from returning and new investors, including Valo Ventures, Gatemore Venture Partners, Collab Fund, and Woori Venture Partners.