First Sale! NJII Defense team sign up to help re-shore metal casting manufacturing

This milestone marks a significant step in the company’s mission to modernize manufacturing processes with a faster, more cost-effective approach to producing production quality cast metal parts and supports the push for reshoring manufacturing in the United States to ensure sovereign capability and supply chain resiliency.

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Thomas Murphy, Director of Defense Manufacturing Technology at NJII said, “We are excited about the opportunity to partner with Foundry Lab to reshore metal casting and aid the limited foundry/casting houses in the U.S. There are many casting applications for our partners and a key element is energizing a new workforce that has limited, hands-on experience with casting. We pride ourselves on being in the early adopter program to bring Foundry Lab’s technology to the Northeast and our partners.”

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“The defense team at NJII is an ideal partner as they’re pushing forward the boundaries of what’s possible in additive manufacturing and have a long history of fostering advanced innovation. Together, we’re setting a new standard for speed and efficiency in metal casting,” says David Moodie, founder and CEO of Foundry Lab.

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A year after demonstrating its innovative technology at Formnext 2023 and launching their DMC-3 system commercially in the U.S in June of 2024, Foundry Lab has successfully transitioned from prototype to commercial application. Its digital metal casting technology empowers manufacturers to create production-quality metal parts within a single day, without the expense and time demands of traditional foundries.

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Strengthening sovereign capability

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Over the past few decades, offshoring and foundry consolidation has reduced the number of metal casting facilities in the U.S from 6,150 in 1955 to just 1750 and declining today. Reshoring efforts to rebuild the U.S metal casting ecosystem are underway, and Foundry Lab is well positioned to be a cornerstone technology in this effort. Increasing domestic metal casting capabilities in the U.S is essential for strengthening national security, ensuring supply chain resilience, and supporting economic growth.

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Rapid turnaround meets defense demand

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NJII’s defense team selected Foundry Lab’s digital metal casting system to streamline prototyping and production cycles, particularly in high-demand, specification-intensive environments where lead times are critical. By shifting from conventional casting methods to Foundry Lab’s system, NJII will reduce prototype lead times and production part casting from years or months to mere hours.

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“The ability to create cast metal parts so quickly is a game-changer in the defense sector where agility, streamlined production, and rapid creation of replacement parts - especially on site - are essential. This is about empowering engineers and casting teams to work faster, innovate more freely, and eliminate bottlenecks that once slowed timelines,” adds Moodie.

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How digital metal casting works

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Digital Metal Casting leapfrogs metal 3D printing to rapidly deliver metal castings. Reducing lead times from many months to hours, Foundry Lab’s DMC-3 system is poised to revolutionize prototyping and production cycles for leading manufacturers, enabling the ability to quickly replace one-off parts and swift ramp-ups in production.

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The proprietary technology solves for speed and quality with a solution that isn’t simply a ‘workaround’. While 3D metal printing produces ‘look-alike’ parts, it can’t replace a real casting. The Foundry Lab system produces a hands-free metal casting – without the need to pour molten metal - in a fraction of the time and cost.

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Vision for the future

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With NJII’s defense team as its first commercial customer, Foundry Lab expects its order book to quickly expand to manufacturers from other industries who are ready to embrace high-speed, high-quality metal casting. It already has strong interest from both the defense and industrial manufacturing sectors.

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“Digital metal casting is about more than just speed,” believes Moodie. “It’s about rebuilding the backbone of metal casting in the United States, empowering businesses to innovate without waiting months for cast parts, to experiment without high costs, and to ultimately deploy this new technology at scale for production, increasing efficiency and sustainability. We’re thrilled to see this vision come to life with NJII.”

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Foundry Lab is backed by Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck, Motional chief executive Karl Iagnemma, and former Autodesk chief executive Carl Bass, as well as venture capital firms GD1, Blackbird, Founders Fund, Promus Ventures, WNT Ventures, Icehouse, and K1W1.

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About NJII

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The New Jersey Innovation Institute (NJII) is a 501c3 organization wholly owned by the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). As an independent corporation, NJII is uniquely positioned to be agile, entrepreneurial, and opportunistic. NJII is focused on accelerating technology and fostering innovation to have a positive economic impact in New Jersey. To date, NJII has generated over $330M in revenue during its ten years of operation across its divisions (AI/ML, Defense, Entrepreneurship, Healthcare and Learning & Development) and today has a team of 100+ members. Learn more: https://www.njii.com/about/

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Media Contact
Hester Tingey
hester@foundrylab.com

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