Nanoparticle printer maker VSParticle raises €6.5m
VSParticle (VSP) in the Netherlands has raised $6.5m to boost development of industrial machines for creating nanoparticles.
The A2 funding for VSParticle was led by NordicNinja and previous investor Plural and includes previous investor Hermann Hauser Investment to boost its nanoparticle tools. This brings the total raised to €24.5m and will be used to scale up production and reach new markets, including Japan and industrial customers.
Nanoparticles are key materials for battery systems and semiconductor production. VSParticle in Delft has developed technology that enables materials to be broken down to the size of nanoparticles and produced at the push of a button. This can be used for battery development, semiconductors, LEDs, solar cells and image sensors as well as hydrogen electrolysers.
This allows researchers and commercial R&D teams to experiment to create new materials. It can take up to 10 years to discover new materials in a lab and a further five to bring them to mass production, but the VSP-P1 system can reduce the overall development time to only one year.
VSP customers are pioneering autonomous labs that integrate robotics, AI, and high-throughput material synthesis to accelerate developments. The next-generation printers have up to 100 times higher output and will also support the company in expanding to Japan and doubling down in the US and Europe.
VSParticle has shipped its flagship product, the VSP-P1 Nanoprinter, to teams across Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North America including the Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi, the San Francisco-based Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Materials Discovery Research Institute (MDRI) in the Chicago area, and the Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research over the past year.
In particular, VSP’s nanoparticle technology is enabling the mass production of catalyst-coated Porous Transport Layers (PTLs), which are the key components in electrolyzers and are essential to the production of green hydrogen.
VSP printers are used to develop new material combinations for PTLs, with a predicted 10x savings in scarce metals, such as iridium, and introduce new products faster and cheaper. By 2027, the first components that have been developed using VSP’s technology should be in the market, creating the end product that will support green hydrogen production.
“Our technology is empowering university researchers and commercial R&D teams across the world to create new materials that will transform the production of green hydrogen and reduce emissions in carbon-intensive industries,” said Aaike van Vugt, co-founder and CEO of VSParticle.
Rainer Sternfeld, Partner at NordicNinja said: “VSParticle’s technology is transforming material innovation and, combined with AI, this will be the basis of world-changing discovery and synthesis over the next decades. We’re delighted to be supporting the impressive VSP team in this extension round, particularly with their Japanese expansion plans to capitalize on the drive to scale the development of green hydrogen. We can’t wait to see what they achieve next.”
Sten Tamkivi, partner at Plural, said: “Material discovery has always been extremely important in science but over the past 12 months, the world has woken up to the need to speed up innovation so we can find the solutions to global challenges, including decarbonizing society. VSParticle is the only company that is driving discovery at the critical early levels so teams can scale experimentation and development of next-generation materials. This technology is already making a difference to teams in Europe and the US, particularly when it comes to enabling AI-driven automation of nanoparticle material discovery.”
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