Bonn/ Berlin — The DeepT­ech & Climate Fund (DTCF) has successfully closed its first invest­ment in a Series A finan­cing. Toge­ther with HZG Group, Onsight Ventures and the exis­ting inves­tor SquareOne, the DTCF provi­des xolo GmbH with 8 million euros. With this funding, xolos aims to trans­form the 3D prin­ting indus­try through their revo­lu­tio­nary new process called “Xolo­gra­phy”. The focus of xolo is on opti­cal appli­ca­ti­ons, bioprin­ting and the dental and acou­stics industries.

Xolo­gra­phy is a volu­metric prin­ting process that prints quickly and produ­ces very smooth surfaces. It also opera­tes with mate­ri­als that previously could not be used for 3D prin­ting. This addres­ses three of the major chal­lenges facing the 3D prin­ting indus­try. The aim is to help Xolo­gra­phy tech­no­logy achieve a breakth­rough and ther­eby open up comple­tely new fields of appli­ca­tion for 3D prin­ting. For exam­ple, in medi­cal tech­no­logy for the repro­duc­tion of organs or in the opti­cal indus­try for the produc­tion of high-precis­ion lenses.

Objects arise virtually from nothing

The prin­ting process was deve­lo­ped at the Berlin-Adlers­hof Tech­no­logy Park by xolo foun­ders Prof. Dr. Martin Regehly, Prof. Dr. Stefan Hecht and Dirk Radzinski. Xolo­gra­phy sounds like science fiction, because objects are crea­ted virtually from nothing. The three foun­ders are putting Xolo­gra­phy to work in the Xube 3D prin­ter. Unlike conven­tio­nal 3D prin­ting proces­ses, which work layer by layer, Xolo­gra­phy prints from the full volume.

For this purpose, a cuvette contai­ning liquid resin moves conti­nuously through a so-called light section into which a light projec­tion is focu­sed. By enri­ching the liquid resin with photo-active special chemi­cals deve­lo­ped by xolo, the so-called photo­in­itia­tors, the end product with smooth surfaces is crea­ted within a very short time. Read more in the scien­ti­fic jour­nal “Nature”, in which the rese­ar­chers descri­bed their method: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020‑3029‑7.

Our inves­tors under­stand the importance of the para­digm shift

xolo co-foun­der and CEO Dirk Radzinski: “Xolo­gra­phy repres­ents a funda­men­tal change in the 3D prin­ting indus­try. From hard­ware to mate­ri­als, ever­y­thing is being rethought. Our inves­tors under­stand the importance of this para­digm shift and support us with their finan­cial strength, exper­tise and network to make it a success.”

Frank Cars­ten Herzog, Mana­ging Part­ner of the HZG Group, adds: “Xolo­gra­phy signi­fi­cantly impro­ves the reso­lu­tion and volume gene­ra­tion rate of previous proces­ses. This means that in the future, the process will be able to produce high volu­mes of detailed objects in a short time — the econo­mic poten­tial is enormous.”

The DTCF focu­ses its invest­ments on the capi­tal-inten­sive growth phase of compa­nies. The goal is to deve­lop the tech­no­logy cham­pi­ons of the future. With its first invest­ment, the DeepT­ech & Climate fund aims to help xolo’s revo­lu­tio­nary 3D prin­ting tech­no­logy make the tran­si­tion to indus­trial-scale use. Co-Mana­ging Direc­tor Tobias Faupel (photo © DTCF): “xolo has all the prere­qui­si­tes to become a future market leader in the field of 3D prin­ting. We are plea­sed to accom­pany this deve­lo­p­ment toge­ther with HZG, Onsight Ventures and SquareOne.”

Consul­tant Xolo: Vogel Heerma Waitz 

Florian Kozok and Sinje Clausen