The problem

Currently, there is a lack of accessible and cost-effective solutions for product development of small and complex devices. As the level of detail increases, better tools and numerous iterations are required to create a final design. This renders the product development of new solutions inaccessible and expensive, leading to many ideas not taking form. Most devices go through several development steps before reaching the end user. The primary methods to generate designs in product development consist of digital simulations and part manufacturing. Each has its respective uses, but both have significant drawbacks on the smallest scales.

State-of-the-art 3D printing is an enabling technology to create sophisticated designs and accelerate product development through rapid iterations and mass-customization of parts. It excels in early-stage and small-to-medium-scale product manufacturing, but it fails at high precision due to high costs, low usability, and lack of material compatibility. This limits its usability in the development of new technologies on microscale.

The solution

The startup has developed an innovative microscale 3D printer through 5 years of research at DTU Health Tech. Built with cost-effectiveness in mind, able to print with conventional materials, fits into existing workflows, and is simple to operate.

The solution is available as 3D print-as-a-service and will later be sold as machines as well. We offer a high-precision polymer-based 3D printing solution, enabling prototyping at a completely new scale of precision at a fraction of the cost. To ensure it will easily integrate to our customer process chain we have focused on getting the technology to work with commercial 3D print materials, meaning that existing users of Resin 3D printers can directly implement our technology for producing parts. Our system can down to 2-5 µm precision in up to 3x3x3 cm volume, making it perfect to prototype small parts and components where fit and feel is very important.

USP’s

High-precision Micro-scale 3D printing with 2-5 µm resolution (25x more precise than industry competitors).

Compact system and cost-effective procedure.

Print-as-a-Service or in-house production.

Biocompatible printing for medical applications.

Team

The team consists of 4 co-founders all stemming from the IDUN section of DTU Health Tech, with various experiences from previous positions and jobs, and large cultural differences but all with technological backgrounds. Furthermore, the team has onboarded an active investor summer 2024.

A, CEO, 37% shares, works fulltime, M.Sc. Physics and Nanotechnology, Danish. Onboarded the project in 2018.

B, COO, 37% Shares, works fulltime, Ph.D. Health Technology, M.Sc. machine engineering, Taiwanese. Onboarded the project in 2018.

C, CTO, 15.7% shares, works parttime, Ph.D. Health Technology, M.Sc., Physics and electronics, Ukrainian. Onboarded the project in 2020.

D, co-founder, 2.8% shares, Advisor and network, Head of section and Professor at DTU Health Tech, Board member at VillumFonden. Initiated the project in 2018, hiring B as a Ph.D. student at the time.

E, Investor, 7.5% shares, Advisor and specialist technology applications across several industries.

Status

We have not yet officially gone to market but have started doing print-as-a-service pilot tests with a range of customers in more than 5 different applications. Here, we have primarily worked with the hearing aid industry and medical/pharmaceutical researchers, where parts for hearing aids and microneedle patches have been the cases with most traction and success so far. We have received letters of intent from WSA, Demant, and GN Resound expressing high interest in our technology and adopting the service, and more than 15 letters of intent from research.