Amastan Technologies, a leading producer of high value advanced materials using microwave-plasma production systems, today announced it raised $13.85 million in new funding. The Series B round, led by industrial technology venture capital firm Anzu Partners, also includes Material Impact, RKS Ventures, KLP Ventures, and LaunchCapital. The company also announced today that Material Impact Venture Partner and former GE Chief Technology Officer Mark Little, PhD, has joined Amastan’s Board of Directors.
The funding round also includes a $2M Emerging Technology Fund loan from MassDevelopment, the finance and development agency for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
“There is an ever-increasing demand for manufacturing processes that are far more efficient, with lower resource impact, and that enable new cost paradigms,” stated Dr. Aaron Bent, Amastan’s CEO. “This investment capital comes as a result of firmly demonstrating a breakthrough technology at scale and across a broad spectrum of critical materials. With this round of capital, we bring on board world-class investors with specialized expertise in bringing to market industrial process technology and advanced materials companies.”
The new funding will be used to expand many of the company’s existing commercial partnerships, increase its overall production capacity with new equipment and systems, grow its engineering staff, and explore new application areas for its proprietary technology.
Amastan’s UniMeltTM technology represents the next generation of clean production technologies to manufacture advanced powders and nanomaterials used in silicon wafers, LED lighting, powders for industrial 3D printing, advanced battery technologies, and thermal coatings. At the heart of the UniMeltTM is its clean and uniform plasma core, operating at 6000 degrees, which radically enhances and accelerates traditional chemical processes. This collapses the traditional hours-to-days long, multi-step production methods of today, to a single, very low waste process step often taking less than one second.
Mark Little, PhD, Venture Partner at Material Impact, is joining Amastan’s Board of Directors following a 37-year career at General Electric, where he served in diverse senior leadership roles in operations, research, strategic planning, joint venture development, and product management. From 2005-2015, as GE’s Chief Technology Officer and Senior Vice President and Director of GE Global Research, Mark reported to the CEO and developed fundamental technologies to help GE compete and grow all of its core business units.
“The proprietary innovations that Amastan has applied to materials development, particularly in its ability to exponentially collapse traditional manufacturing processes, is simply astounding”, said, Dr. Little. “I am very excited to be joining the Amastan Board and bringing my global business experience to help the company accelerate its growth and expand its presence to other regions and industries.”
For more information about Amastan Technologies, please visit http://amastan.com.
About Amastan Technologies
Amastan is commercializing a revolutionary production platform, leveraging plasma to produce advanced materials at lowered costs, and with new capabilities to engineer “designer” materials for unique properties not available through conventional solid state or chemical co-precipitation routes. Amastan’s patented UniMeltTM technology is the only commercial scale plasma with a highly uniform production zone capable of synthesizing materials with extremely tight uniformity in specification down to the nanostructured morphology. Amastan focuses on developing critical materials used to manufacture silicon wafers, LED lighting, powders for industrial 3D printing, advanced battery technologies, and thermal coatings. For more information, please visit http://amastan.com.
About Anzu Partners
Anzu Partners is a venture capital and private equity firm that invests in breakthrough industrial technologies. We team with entrepreneurs to develop and commercialize technological innovations by providing capital and deep expertise in business development, market positioning, global connectivity, and operations. For more information, please visit https://anzupartners.com.
About Material Impact
Material Impact is a venture firm that builds transformative innovative materials technologies into enduring companies that solve large scale, real-world problems. Our strategy, which blends a unique business model of licensing university technologies and commercializing them through targeted partnerships with leading corporates is powered by a team of partners with deep and relevant scientific, operational, and venture expertise. We partner with entrepreneurs to translate material science innovation into great products and valuable companies that impact a breadth of industries, including water & food supply, healthcare, clean energy, transportation and industrial productivity. For more information, please visit www.materialimpact.com.
About RKS Ventures
RKS Ventures is an investment vehicle for the Gupta Family. RKS invests in companies that are focused on developing breakthrough hardware and software technologies, with a specific interest in companies building platform industrial technologies that are complementary to the expertise of the team. For more information, email info@rksventures.com.
About KLP Ventures & LaunchCapital
KLP Ventures is the investment arm of the Pritzker/Vlock Family office. The enterprise owns and manages a broad portfolio of public equities, consumer, biotech, industrial and medical equipment and technology businesses, several venture funds, and real estate. They are involved in numerous national philanthropic efforts individually and through their family foundation with emphasis on literacy, education, medicine, theatre and land preservation. LaunchCapital is their seed staged venture capital fund. Over the past decade, LaunchCapital is proud to have invested in over 200 companies that are reinventing industries across the nation.
