Henry Ford Moment for Solar

This week: Portable factories, optimizing green hydrogen, conformal cooling, toolpaths for common molds, Gemini Robotics, BotQ, machine health, ammonia fueled ship, and logistics startups are hot.

Mar 16, 2025

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Capturing this week's zeitgeist

The most rewarding venture capital journeys often begin with unexpected connections, as demonstrated by Fika Ventures and Edge Impulse—where a missed investment opportunity led to a chance introduction and ultimately one of their most exciting portfolio companies. Great VC relationships thrive when investors identify "visionary pragmatists" who combine deep domain expertise with exceptional execution, while focusing on companies building defensible moats through unique data and insights. Edge Impulse exemplified this formula perfectly, transforming intelligence at the edge, building a community of 170,000+ developers, and forging partnerships with industry giants before their successful acquisition by Qualcomm—proving that in venture capital, persistence, relationship-building, and a keen eye for execution-focused founders can lead to extraordinary outcomes.

Assembly Line

This week's most influential Industry 4.0 media.

☀️🔁 Making solar projects cheaper and faster with portable factories

✍️ Author: Zach Winn

As the price of solar panels has plummeted in recent decades, installation costs have taken up a greater share of the technology’s overall price tag. The long installation process for solar farms is also emerging as a key bottleneck in the deployment of solar energy.

Now the startup Charge Robotics is developing solar installation factories to speed up the process of building large-scale solar farms. The company’s factories are shipped to the site of utility solar projects, where equipment including tracks, mounting brackets, and panels are fed into the system and automatically assembled. A robotic vehicle autonomously puts the finished product — which amounts to a completed section of solar farm — in its final place.

“We think of this as the Henry Ford moment for solar,” says CEO Banks Hunter ’15, who founded Charge Robotics with fellow MIT alumnus Max Justicz ’17. “We’re going from a very bespoke, hands on, manual installation process to something much more streamlined and set up for mass manufacturing. There are all kinds of benefits that come along with that, including consistency, quality, speed, cost, and safety.”

💧🎛️ How to Optimize Green Hydrogen Projects Using ETAP and Digital Twin Technology for Efficiency

🖨️3️⃣🏭 Roboze CEO Alessio Lorusso: “We are on a mission to build the largest additive manufacturing factory in the world.”

Exploring MyMiniFactory: A Comprehensive Guide for Engineers to Access Free STL Files for Prototyping and Design Projects /AM Chronicle/
Introducing the new UltiMaker S8 /YouTube/ and review /3DPI/

🚙 Inside Tesla’s Model Y Upgrades – Exclusive with Lars & Franz

🗜️ COSTAMP 𝗣𝘂𝘇𝘇𝗹𝗲𝗗𝗶𝗲® solution scientifically fractioning cavity inserts into multiple sub-inserts to dissipate thermal-mechanical stress /LinkedIn/
⏱️ Conformal cooling brings down cycle time – minimizing the time the casting is in a semi-solid state, thus reducing deformations & internal stress. /Tesla Manufacturing on X/
🗜️ Large high pressure die castings throughout the Rivian R2 body structure, eliminating 50 stampings and over 300 joints from the body assembly /RJ Scaringe on X/
🗜️ Why No Front Gigacasting on the New Tesla Model Y? /Luca Greco on X/
🧠 Using AI to advance manufacturing at General Motors /GM/

🗿 The Cure for the Common Mold

✍️ Author: Emil Johansson

This article explores key design and material considerations for large-scale composite molds and tooling, and show how ADAXIS’ AdaOne software can streamline tool path generation for these massive prints.

The idea is to take a lot of the manual guesswork out of slicing such a big, complex part. AdaOne’s workflow will automatically generate the necessary infill, perimeters, and even special features like internal supports or extra material for machining. Of course, you still have control over parameters, but it can do a lot automatically. This is huge for productivity – what might take an expert several days to manually program on generic software could be done in a much shorter time with AdaOne’s purpose-built routines.

New Product Introduction

Highlighting new and innovative facilities, processes, products, and services

🦾🧠 Gemini Robotics brings AI into the physical world

✍️ Author: Carolina Parada

We are introduce two new AI models, based on Gemini 2.0, which lay the foundation for a new generation of helpful robots. The first is Gemini Robotics, an advanced vision-language-action (VLA) model that was built on Gemini 2.0 with the addition of physical actions as a new output modality for the purpose of directly controlling robots. The second is Gemini Robotics-ER, a Gemini model with advanced spatial understanding, enabling roboticists to run their own programs using Gemini’s embodied reasoning (ER) abilities.

Both of these models enable a variety of robots to perform a wider range of real-world tasks than ever before. As part of our efforts, we’re partnering with Apptronik to build the next generation of humanoid robots with Gemini 2.0. We’re also working with a selected number of trusted testers to guide the future of Gemini Robotics-ER.

🧑‍⚕️ Augury Releases First AI-Powered Predictive Maintenance Solution for Ultra Low RPM Machinery

Augury unveiled its Machine Health Ultra Low solution, introducing the industry’s first AI-driven monitoring and diagnostics for slow-rotating machinery (1-150 RPM). This breakthrough solution leverages ultrasonic sensing and advanced AI diagnostics to detect machine faults early, at a high degree of accuracy, in manufacturing equipment previously considered too complex to monitor continuously. With this launch, Augury expands its industry-leading Machine Health 360° coverage to hundreds of additional asset types. Machine Health 360° gives manufacturers greater coverage and control with reliable AI diagnostics that continuously expand to cover more assets, of any criticality, in any environment.

🚢 World's First Ammonia-Fueled Ship Hits a Snag

✍️ Author: Willie D. Jones

The Viking Energy, an oil platform supply ship undergoing a pioneering retrofit to run on ammonia fuel, is now scheduled to begin operations in 2026—two years later than initially planned. Once completed, it will be the first vessel capable of operating full-time on ammonia, marking a major milestone in efforts to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the maritime industry.

Business Transactions

This week's top funding events, acquisitions, and partnerships across industrial value chains.

🚚 Logistics Startups Are Back in Demand as Companies Navigate Tariffs /WSJ/
⛓️‍💥 Companies seek AI solutions to supply chain fragility /FT/
📽️ Season 3 of Supply Chain Transformed takes a detailed look at how new technologies are fueling the future of the logistics industry /DigiKey/

🇺🇸 Lumafield Announces $75 Million Series C Funding

Lumafield, a pioneering developer of industrial X-ray CT technology, announced it has closed a $75 million Series C funding round. The funding solidifies the company’s position as a leader in advanced manufacturing as the U.S. renews its focus on manufacturing supremacy and companies around the world reconfigure their supply chains in response to strategic threats. IVP led the round, which includes new investors G2 Venture Partners and Wellington Management along with existing investors Spark Capital, DCVC, Kleiner Perkins, Lux Capital, and Matter Venture Partners. It marks a major milestone in the company’s growth trajectory and will accelerate the development of larger-scale applications and the deployment of next-generation CT solutions.

🇨🇦 Novarc Technologies secures $50M Series B funding for AI welding expansion

Novarc Technologies, an AI robotics company specializing in the design and manufacturing of automated welding solutions, raised $50 million in a Series B funding round led by Export Development Canada (EDC), Canada’s export credit agency, with participation from private investment firm Graham Partners, Seaspan, and B.C.-based investment fund, InBC Investment (InBC).

Novarc’s AI-powered adaptive welding system NovAI enables robots to see and adapt like a welder. By using machine vision, deep neural nets for perception and real-time adjustments, NovAI reportedly eliminates the need for pre-scanning and robotic reprogramming. NovAI Autonomy will be commercially available in the Summer of 2025.

🇬🇧 Alloyed raises £37M for additive manufacturing in aerospace and electronics

Oxford University spinout company Alloyed, a developer and manufacturer of advanced metallic components for aerospace and electronics, has raised £37 million Series B funding. The company is focused on automated design and manufacturing through additive manufacturing, or industrial-scale 3D printing, which combines many functions into one metal part. Japanese investors SPARX and the Development Bank of Japan, led the round, with participation from Aviva Investors and Future Industry Ventures (a Redstone and SBI fund).

Its current customers include Boeing, Microsoft, Anglo American and BMW, with its applications spanning a wide range of industries – including lightweight antennas and structural components for satellites, high-temperature-resistant alloys for jet engines, as well as precision parts for jewellery, wearables such as virtual reality headsets, and smartwatches.

🇩🇰 ATLANT 3D Secures $15 M Series A+ as Demand Grows for its Atomic Layer Processing Technology

ATLANT 3D, whose atomic-scale manufacturing technology enables precise development of advanced materials and devices for optics, photonics, microelectronics, quantum computing, sensors, and space applications, announced a $15M Series A+ funding round led by West Hill Capital.

ATLANT 3D builds materials and devices, atom by atom, through its direct atomic layer processing (DALP®) technology, which places precise amounts of materials exactly where needed. The system creates complex structures for microelectronics, semiconductors, and advanced devices in a single step. By replacing traditional multi-step fabrication with direct atomic-scale manufacturing, this approach eliminates process complexity while reducing material waste by 90 percent. Different research teams use DALP® technology to create what was previously impractical or impossible, from quantum computing components to devices that will operate in space.

🇧🇪 Antwerp’s Aloxy raises €7.4M to build IIoT solutions for the energy and chemical industry

Antwerp-based Aloxy, an Internet of Things (IoT) company, announced that it has secured €7.4M capital from Dow Venture Capital, and Emerson Ventures. The funding will allow the Belgian company to grow internationally by creating partnerships and launching new products.

The company’s technology monitors various equipment, such as the open/close positions of manual valves, the activation of emergency showers, and the status of line blinds. By using Aloxy’s solution, companies can reduce the risks of errors that could lead to safety issues, downtime, or extra costs. The company leverages low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) communication technologies, such as LoRaWAN, to enable seamless and cost-effective industrial connectivity.