Remember Additive Drives? The German manufacturer of high-performance 3D-printed electric motor technology. Well, the company just welcomed Nordic Alpha Partners as a key investor.
The specialist private equity investor in green industrial transformation has acquired a significant minority stake in Additive Drives, through a mid-double-digit million-euro investment.
Existing investor AM Ventures also committed new capital, having backed Additive Drives since its seed stage.
Focus on electric motors to reduce global energy consumption
Mitigating energy loss from these motors is one of the most direct ways to improve energy use and support the global re-industrialisation agenda. In general, electric motors and the systems they drive account for around 53% of global electricity consumption.
According to the company, Additive Drives’ technology for industrial customers reaches up to 98% energy efficiency, lowering overall energy loss by up to 70%. This performance exceeds the IE5 benchmark defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission. In fact, Additive Drives’ technology delivers performance that the company describes as reaching IE7 performance.
The German company is already serving some of the largest blue-chip customers in the world, including Amazon, Airbus, Audi, Schaeffler, BMW with its high-performance 3D-printed electric motor technology.
For industrial customers, this means tremendous gains in energy efficiency, lower total cost of ownership, and improved sustainability performance in high-demand applications.
At the same time, Additive Drives’ motors deliver the highest thrust-to-weight ratio, opening up entirely new types of innovation and applications. The most important measure for electric vehicles, aerospace, aviation and advanced robotics in order to attain longer range, lower energy usage and improved systems reliability, one learns in a press release.
Technology leadership and financial strength
Additive Drives’ production technology further enables rapid deployment. In fact, prototypes can be manufactured in just 21 days, cutting development cycles and down-time.
As a result, Additive Drives has seen strong profitability from day one and is already bankable with several European lenders.
The company was recently ranked #7 in a leading German financial performance ranking among more than 8000 founded companies.
“We wanted to work with Nordic Alpha Partners because they have a unique toolkit for industrial scaling and navigating industrial transformations”, said Philipp Arnold, Chief Financial Officer at Additive Drives. “We have been cash-positive from early on and we were looking for an operational partner that could really enable us to tap into hypergrowth and expand globally even faster”
Also in 3D ADEPT Mag: the 2025 healthcare edition. Discover the entire issue here.
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