Free Form Fibers' $2.5 million financing round scales up composites production

Free Form Fibers (FFF, Saratoga Spring, N.Y., U.S.) reported that it has concluded a $2.5 million financing round to build additional production capacity for pure fiber and powder materials produced using its 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,” says John Schneiter, chairman of FFF and CEO for the past 11 years. “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.”

According to Shay Harrison, FFF’s new CEO, the company has been developing and refining its production process with the support of local investors and numerous governmental technology development grants from agencies such as the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation (NSF, Alexandria, Ver., U.S.) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA, Arlington County, Ver., U.S.). “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-generation applications like ceramic matrix composites [CMC],” he adds.

“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,” says James Besser, managing member at Manchester Management and a lead investor in the round. “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.”