With its latest funding round of $500 million, following a funding round just 10 months ago in which it brought in $220 million, Massachusetts-based VulcanForms now has cumulative all-time funding of just over a billion dollars. But, as striking as those figures are, they’re not the most important numbers to take away from the news of VulcanForms’ latest haul.
The round, led by JPMorganChase through its $1.5 trillion Security and Resiliency Initiative (SRI), as well as by Apollo Global Management, will facilitate VulcanForms’ building of three new factories, doubling its number of manufacturing sites. It also allows the company to double its workforce by the end of 2027, from 500 to 1,000. Those are all impressive numbers as well, but again, they’re still not the most important ones.
The most important number isn’t a specific figure at all, it’s a description: “multibillion,” which is the dollar value of the commercial programs that VulcanForms’ manufacturing capacity is already tied to. Just as significant is that those contracts span several different industries. While VulcanForms first shared this detail in its Series D announcement back in January, it’s worth reemphasizing. This high-value, multi-industry backlog is exactly why the company keeps attracting so much capital.
The work that the funding round relates to was signaled at least as long ago as the summer, when, as Vanesa Listek reported, VulcanForms was awarded more than $21.2 million by the Massachusetts Economic Assistance Coordinating Council. At the time, the company stated that the money would contribute towards its planned construction of a million-square-foot site in Devens, Massachusetts.
Along with its proven, diverse customer base and its proprietary PBF technology designed specifically for scaled production, there are plenty of other reasons why VulcanForms is worth betting on for investors looking to capitalize on growing demand for domestic US manufacturing capacity. Many of these reasons have to do with VulcanForms’ presence in Massachusetts, including its close relationship with MIT, going back to the company’s roots as a spinout from the university in 2015. Additionally, VulcanForms’ co-founder and current board member John Hart is still an MIT professor and is heavily involved in the Initiative for New Manufacturing (INM), a unique MIT program launched in 2025.
Additionally, as evidenced by policies including the tax credits VulcanForms is benefitting from, Massachusetts is prioritizing the maintenance and expansion of its position in a full range of advanced manufacturing activities. The state is uniquely positioned to do so precisely because of its being home to MIT and many other globally-leading research institutions, which provides the foundation for a bustling innovation environment. As VulcanForms’ CEO Kevin Kassekert aptly noted in the press release about the latest funding round, however, “America cannot lead the next industrial revolution if we can’t manufacture what we invent.”
The company has clearly made competitive advantage, on both national and state levels, a major motivating factor behind its long-term strategy. There are of course many companies attempting to execute similar strategies, but again, the essential thing to remember about VulcanForms is that they’re expanding based on existing, meaningful contracts, and they aren’t simply banking on demand from a single US government agency.
It’s noteworthy, too, that the round is being announced at a time when investors are increasingly skeptical of companies requiring new massive CapEx commitments. It’s worth entertaining the possibility that it’s not so much the CapEx itself that’s the problem, but rather, what the money is being spent on. Perhaps VulcanForms will remain a total anomaly — which wouldn’t be that out of character for the company — and we won’t see any more funding rounds like this any time soon for US manufacturers. But the company could also be signaling that many investors now believe that US manufacturing is a bet on the future that they want to make right now.
Images courtesy of VulcanForms
