Texas-based Essentium, a leading 3D printing solutions for industrial additive manufacturing raises $22.2 million in Series A funding led by BASF Venture Capital with participation from Materialise, Genesis Park, and previous seed round investors.

BASF Venture Capital Investment Manager, Sven Thate, will join the Essentium board. The funding round will be used to scale manufacturing, engineering, international distribution, sales and marketing operations to meet market demand for the recently introduced Essentium High Speed Extrusion (HSE) Platform.

The fact that the Essentium Series A round of financing is one of the highest in the history of additive manufacturing illustrates the role the company will play in transitioning the category from hype to implementation.

The multi-billion-dollar potential of additive manufacturing has long been hampered by an inability to produce parts to a similar strength, speed and scale of injection molded parts.

Essentium has operations in College Station, Texas; Orange County, California; and Shanghai, China. These areas are set to benefit through employment and business creation opportunities from the fast-growing additive manufacturing market and its impact on industries such as automotive, aerospace, biomedical, contract manufacturing, and oil and gas.

Essentium co-founder and CEO, Blake Teipel said, “Industrial additive manufacturing is ripe for transformation. The problem/solution paradigm is made clear through independent research we commissioned among executives in industrial manufacturing where 100% of respondents reported obstacles in using 3D printing for large scale production, and 88% stated that their industries will save billions of dollars in production costs when the barriers are eliminated. Eliminating these barriers is what Essentium is delivering on.”

The company (Essentium) is committed to creating digitally-enabled solutions at scale for the world’s top manufacturers. Essentium provides a new generation of industrial 3D manufacturing platforms with performance, reliability, and economics in mind.