{"id":35764,"date":"2021-01-15T14:31:29","date_gmt":"2021-01-15T19:31:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/?p=35764"},"modified":"2021-01-18T11:26:16","modified_gmt":"2021-01-18T16:26:16","slug":"free-form-fibers-in-grande-industrial-park-raises-2-5-million-for-future-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/2021\/01\/free-form-fibers-in-grande-industrial-park-raises-2-5-million-for-future-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Form Fibers In Grande Industrial Park Raises $2.5 Million For Future Development"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Free Form Fibers CEO Dr. Shay Harrison says money raised will buy needed equipment.
\u00a92021 SaratogaPhotographer.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Christine Graf
\nFree Form Fibers, a Saratoga Spring high-tech company in the Grande Industrial Park, completed raising a $2.5 million in November that will be used to further its development.
\nFree Form Fibers utilizes advanced technology to create high-performance ceramic fibers that are used to make durable parts for the aviation and nuclear industries. The fibers are approximately 1\/4 the diameter of a human hair.
\nThe majority of the $2.5 million that was raised will be used to build the three production tools necessary to produce ceramic fibers. The tools should be up and running by the end of March. Without them, the company can only provide lab-sized samples to potential customers for evaluation.
\nThe company anticipates that their fibers will be used in the LEAP commercial aircraft engine, an engine developed through a partnership between GE Aviation and Safran Aircraft Engines. LEAP engines operate with a 15 percent improvement in fuel consumption and CO2 when compared to other engines.
\n\u201cThe LEAP engine has about 5 or 6 percent by weight of ceramic matrix composite (CMC). CMCs allow engines to run at higher temp and thus at higher efficiency. They are also lighter weight than the metals they are replacing,\u201d said CEO Dr. Shay Harrison, who joined the company in 2012. \u201cCMCs require fibers as part of the product. What we are offering as commercial products are materials that go into these types of composites that will replace metals in very high temperature applications or very chemically aggressive applications.\u201d
\nThe company was founded in 2006 by three material scientists, Dr. Joe Pegna, Dr. Kirk Williams, and Dr. Ramkiran Goduguchinta. It has grown to 10 employees and recently hired a controller and a director of sales and business development. They hope to hire a manufacturing technician in 2021.
\n\u201cWe call ourselves the grandfather of startups,\u201d said Harrison. \u201cWhat we have been doing is a lot of R&D development over the past 10-plus years. We\u2019re now in the transition phase of moving to commercialization. We\u2019re building some production tools, and we\u2019ve added some staff members to move to generating revenue with customer sales.\u201d
\n\u201cBy the end of first quarter 2021, I\u2019m hoping we will have our three production tools up and running and be able to provide pounds and kilograms of material for sale as opposed to grams of material for evaluation,\u201d said Harrison. \u201cOur target is to have our first purchase orders in the second half of 2021.\u201d
\nBecause Free Form Fibers relies heavily on the aviation industry, the COVID-19 pandemic has had major implications for the company. As a result, they have had to recalibrate their sales plan.
\n\u201cThe unknown in next 12 to 18 months is that we are very dialed into jet engine market,\u201d said Harrison. \u201cGE, Rolls Royce and Pratt & Whitney have laid off tens of thousands of workers due to COVID. There are other areas we are working on it terms of our products and markets, but we spent 10 years getting to know everyone in the aircraft engine community. COVID has forced us not only look at other markets but adjust our time scale for that.\u201d
\nBefore fundraising campaign, 60 to 65 percent of the company\u2019s funding was obtained through Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) programs. These offer funding to small businesses that engage in federal research and development with the potential for commercialization
\n\u201cThe materials we work on are of high interest of the federal government in particular the Department of Defense for jet engine applications and other areas including nuclear power generation,\u201d said Harrison. \u201cWe\u2019ve received money from the NSF (National Science Foundation), NASA, the Department of Energy, DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), and some Department of Defense sources. We\u2019ve been very fortunate to be able to leverage grant funding programs.
\n\u201cThat\u2019s allowed us to survive for as long as we have because it is of serious interest to some very important high-tech programs. We have been at this for over a decade. We\u2019re trying to go as fast as we can. The opportunities are there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Christine Graf Free Form Fibers, a Saratoga Spring high-tech company in the Grande Industrial Park, completed raising a $2.5 million in November that will be used to further its development. Free Form Fibers utilizes advanced technology to create high-performance ceramic fibers that are used to make durable parts for the aviation and nuclear industries. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":35765,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news"],"yoast_head":"\r\nFree Form Fibers In Grande Industrial Park Raises $2.5 Million For Future Development - Saratoga Business Journal<\/title>\r\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\r\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.saratoga.com\/saratogabusinessjournal\/2021\/01\/free-form-fibers-in-grande-industrial-park-raises-2-5-million-for-future-development\/\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Free Form Fibers In Grande Industrial Park Raises $2.5 Million For Future Development - Saratoga Business Journal\" \/>\r\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Christine Graf Free Form Fibers, a Saratoga Spring high-tech company in the Grande Industrial Park, completed raising a $2.5 million in November that will be used to further its development. 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