工业激光专家Nuburu设置为v上市ia a merger with Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC)Tailwind Acquisition Corp(TWND).
通过这笔交易，Nuburu和Tailwind Acquisition计划将3.5亿美元的企业合并为支持3.34亿美元的总收入，而资产管理公司另外提供了1亿美元Lincoln Park Capital.
The agreement marks the latest in a3D printing SPAC merger trend, which emerged after台式金属公开in late-2020. During the 20 months since, SPACs have targeted 3D printing firms in takeovers worth over $13 billion, and though the popularity of these deals had seemed to enter a recent lull, they now appear to be back in vogue as a way of rapidly becoming listed and raising capital.
Nuburu首席执行官Mark Zediker说：“随着电气化和制造业推动目标市场的增长的进步，这种资本输液旨在为Nuburu提供持续的动力。”“我们专注于发展我们的客户群，扩大分销渠道，加速我们的超高亮度产品家族的开发，并扩展我们的制造运营以满足需求。”
“预计我们与TWND的合作伙伴关系将加速我们的扩张计划，使我们能够从公共市场的优势地位中受益。”
努布鲁的蓝色激光技术
While Nuburu was established in 2015, it wasn’t until the introduction of its first industrial blue laser two years later that it was able to truly carve out a market niche of its own. In general, blue lasers offer better print quality than laser diodes when it comes to 3D printing with copper, stainless steel or aluminum, as these reflect large amounts of light energy.
尤其是铜在吸收蓝光方面比其他波长更好，并且使用它AO and AI lasers, Nurburu says it’s possible to 3D print dense parts from the alloy ten times faster than those of its competitors. When used in a Laser Metal Deposition set up, the firm says its lasers can even weld copper onto steel, or copper onto other copper, something that’s impossible with infrared.
Over the last two years, the laser specialist has sought to build on its market-leading position by expanding its portfolio. To fund this expansion,Nuburu raised $20 millionin late-2020, which it earmarked for the development of an ‘AI’ welding system. This was closely followed byNuburu gaining seven patentsrelated to its visible laser technologies, and it now holds 170 granted patents and applications.
As part of its latest pre-IPO expansion in May, Nuburu has also revealed it’s working with Essentium on ablue laser-based metal 3D printer. Interestingly, its partner is better known for its Fused FIlament Fabrication (FFF) operations, and agreed to go public itself last year. WhileEssentium’s SPAC merger collapsedin early-2022, the firm has since licensed the technology behind Nuburu’s foundational patent, and the pair are understood to still be working on their new system.
Financing future growth opportunities
Having entered a business combination agreement with Tailwind Acquisition, Nuburu is now in the process of becoming publicly-listed. Once the transaction is complete, the resulting enterprise will be listed under the ticker ‘BURU.’ The deal, which values Nuburu at $350 million, is still subject to the approval of both firms’ shareholders, but is expected to be wrapped up by early-2023.
Under the terms of the agreement, each TWND non-redeeming stakeholder will receive one preferred share for every Class A common stock that’s not redeemed at a price of $10.00 per share. The deal also allows Nuburu to raise additional capital through the issuance of convertible notes prior to its closing. Using any funding raised, the firm plans to invest in R&D and unleash a cross-industry expansion.
“Our goal at TWND is to partner with a founder-led company that has a large addressable market and is positioned for rapid and sustainable long-term growth,” adds Chris Hollod, CEO of TWND. “We are pleased to have the opportunity to join forces with Nuburu, a business offering solutions in metal processing that are critical to 3D printing, aerospace, consumer electronics, and e-mobility.”
3D printing SPAC mergers return
SPAC mergers offer privately-traded companies a faster, less-regulated route to going public than traditional IPOs allow, and this has made them popular among 3D printing firms in the last couple of years. Earlier this year,Fathom Digital Manufacturing went publicvia a merger withAltimar Aquisition Corp II这看到它估计筹集了大约8000万美元。
In September 2021,Shapewaysand Velo3D announced SPAC mergersof their own, amid a surge in similar transactions which saw标记,Redwire,Shapewaysand more go public via similar deals. That said, not all these deals agreed by additive manufacturing firms went through last year, andBright Machines’ $1.6 billion SPAC mergercollapsed with “market conditions” reportedly to blame.
As long ago as 2014, before these deals were even called SPAC mergers,Nano Dimension went public via a reverse merger. Since then, havingraised over $1.5 billion from investors,Nano Dimension has bought shares in Stratasysand made many acquisitions includingDeepCube,Admatec,Formatec,Global Inkjet Systems和Nanofabrica。
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Featured image shows a Nuburu blue laser. Photo via Nuburu.
