Silicon Valley startup peddles 3D-printed bike

AGC

17/05/2018 12:30

By Stephen Nellis
    May 17 (Reuters) - After a career that included helping
Alphabet Inc's  GOOGL.O  Google build out data centers and
speeding packages for Amazon.com Inc  AMZN.O  to customers, Jim
Miller is doing what many Silicon Valley executives do after
stints at big companies: finding more time to ride his bike.
    But this bike is a little different. Arevo Inc, a startup
with backing from the venture capital arm of the Central
Intelligence Agency and where Miller recently took the helm, has
produced what it says is the world's first carbon fiber bicycle
with 3D-printed frame.
    Arevo is using the bike to demonstrate its design software
and printing technology, which it hopes to use to produce parts
for bicycles, aircraft, space vehicles and other applications
where designers prize the strength and lightness of so-called
"composite" carbon fiber parts but are put off by the high-cost
and labor-intensive process of making them.
    Arevo on Thursday raised $12.5 million in venture funding
from a unit of Japan's Asahi Glass Co Ltd  5201.T  and Leslie
Ventures. Previously, the company raised $7 million from Khosla
Ventures and an undisclosed sum from In-Q-Tel, the venture
capital fund backed by the CIA.
    Traditional carbon fiber bikes are expensive because workers
lay individual layers of carbon fiber impregnated with resin
around a mold of the frame by hand. The frame then gets baked in
an oven to melt the resin and bind the carbon fiber sheets
together.
    Arevo's technology uses a "deposition head" mounted on a
robotic arm to print out the three-dimensional shape of the
bicycle frame. The head lays down strands of carbon fiber and
melts a thermoplastic material to bind the strands, all in one
step. 
    The process involves almost no human labor, allowing Arevo
to build bicycle frames for $300 in costs, even in pricey
Silicon Valley.
    "We're right in line with what it costs to build a bicycle
frame in Asia," Miller said. "Because the labor costs are so
much lower, we can re-shore the manufacturing of composites."
    While Miller said Arevo is in talks with several bike
manufacturers, the company eventually hopes to supply aerospace
parts. Arevo's printing head could run along rails to print
larger parts and would avoid the need to build huge ovens to
bake them in.
    "We can print as big as you want - the fuselage of an
aircraft, the wing of an aircraft," Miller said.
    
    

 (Reporting by Stephen Nellis; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
 ((Stephen.Nellis@thomsonreuters.com; (415) 344-4934;))