After going through major changes last year, including being delisted from the NYSE and being acquired by Arrayed Additive, Silicon Valley-based metal 3D printer OEM Velo3D has been picking up steam so far in 2025, putting together a string of diverse partnerships with key collaborators in the U.S. defense industrial base. All in the last few months, in addition to deals with arms manufacturer Ohio Ordnance Works and a $22 million powder supply contract with Amaero International, Velo3D has also secured a $15 million stake in commercial space company Momentus in exchange for a five-year service agreement.
Now, Velo3D is deepening its already extensive ties with the Department of Defense (DoD): the company has announced a four-year Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with two federal laboratories within U.S. Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR): Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD), and Fleet Readiness Center East (FRC East). Under a CRADA, U.S. federal laboratories contract with private enterprises to jointly develop technologies and products — often carrying dual-use implications — with the government permitted to provide resources, but not funding.
The specific objective of Velo3D’s NAVAIR CRADA is to characterize metals to be used in aerospace and defense additive manufacturing (AM) applications. Aerospace is an area where Velo3D has excelled, historically, especially in the area of propulsion: among other use-cases, Velo3D’s technology has been critical to the scale-up of companies including SpaceX and Ursa Major. The U.S. Navy, meanwhile, has its own long-term R&D partnership with Ursa Major, having invested over $10 million in the rocket propulsion specialist last fall.
In a press release about Velo3D’s four-year CRADA with the U.S. Navy to characterize metals for aerospace applications, the company’s CEO, Arun Jeldi, said, “This CRADA with NAWCAD and FRC East represents a significant milestone in advancing our ability to provide precise, repeatable and scalable [AM] solutions for the defense industry. By focusing on engineering-driven solutions, we are helping to bridge the gap toward qualifying AM flight hardware and enabling the production of mission-critical parts that meet the stringent reliability and performance demands of defense applications.”
Paul Charon, Additive Manufacturing Lead for FRC East, said, “The collaboration brings together the shared expertise of NAVAIR and Velo3D to develop and expand the application of [AM] technology for sustainment of Naval aviation platforms. The utilization of advanced technology, such as AM, drives positive fleet outcomes including improved mission readiness and increased system performance.”
This deal seems like a perfect utilization of Velo3D’s Rapid Production Solutions (RPS) business, the technology development and parts production service that the company’s renewed corporate strategy hinges upon. Via the CRADA, Velo3D can file a patent on IP that it co-develops with the Navy, with the government retaining a license to the patent, as well. Ultimately, this could incentivize the DoD to prioritize the resultant products or processes, which would give Velo3D an advantage in seeking any future contracts to which the IP is relevant.
The Sapphire XC 1MZ 3D printer from Velo3D. Image courtesy of Velo3D.
If the DoD is indeed getting serious about accelerating AM’s potential to enable distributed supply chains — as it appears to be doing — that would be another long-term catalyst favoring Velo3D’s ability to continue to gain traction with the defense industrial base. The company’s “golden file” oil and gas case study, which it announced in early 2023, remains one of the most promising demonstrations of how AM can be used to facilitate decentralized manufacturing, precisely in a fashion that lends itself to military maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO).
Velo3D is still early in the stages of its turnaround, but so far, the company should be a symbol of hope to every enterprise in the AM industry that feels the deck has been stacked against them. The company has endured a whirlwind of highs and lows since its hard pivot to defense at the end of 2023, as signaled early on in this white paper, co-produced by Velo3D and AM Research. But it never lost sight of its mission, never succumbed to negativity, and its persistence looks to be paying off.
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