Before that, he spent sixteen years at NAVTEQ, a provider of digital maps and navigation systems. He left as CEO. In April 2015, Jeff DeGrange joined as Chief Commercial Officer. De- Grange was previously vice president at Stratasys and before that, led additive manufacturing efforts at Boeing. Dr. John Bayldon came on in July 2014, after having worked with Swartz as a consultant for the compa- ny. He specializes in manufacturing and mechanics of composite materials. In December, the company an- nounced it had received $2.8 million in seed financing led by OCA Ventures, a venture capital firm based in Chi- cago that focuses on “companies with dramatic growth potential, primarily in technology and highly-scalable services businesses.” Northwestern University is also an investor.
As for the company’s customers,
most prefer to remain anonymous, but Kaplan disclosed that a majority of the parts the company is producing are for the aerospace and defense industries, followed by automotive. Two of Impossible Objects’ identi- fied customers, Aurora Flight Sciences and Horton Inc., support his assertion. The company manufactured a stabilizer mount for a small aircraft for Aurora Flight Sciences, and a fan blade for trucks for Horton. Both of these parts were initially created using SLS, Swartz said, but would frequently break. In the case of the aircraft, the stabilizer mount couldn’t withstand the force during landing, and the fan blades would snap under the pressure of actual use testing. With CBAM, those parts can be created using a much stronger composite, preventing them from breaking. The company has also produced electronics enclosures for rockets and brackets for aerospace. Impossible Objects also recently
entered into a collaborative research agreement with Oak Ridge National
See us at SOUTH-TEC Booth #630 October 2015 |
AdvancedManufacturing.org 107
Laboratory to develop carbon fiber tooling using PEEK, which Swartz called a recognition of the company’s capabili- ties by industry experts. “We’re seeing those kinds of things in lots of areas,” he added.
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