European Innovation Leader in 2PP 3D-Printing Tackles US-Market

Vienna, Austria, 28 February 2022 – Based on strong interest from the US market and a solid finance position, UpNano GmbH, a commercial-stage technology company and leader in 2 Photon-Polymerization (2PP) 3D-printing, announced it will extend operations to the United States, adding Erika Bechtold as Vice President of US operations. The company manufactures and sells the renown NanoOne series of laser-powered 2PP 3D-printing systems that are able to build structures across 12 orders of magnitude at an unprecedented speed. The company’s expansion follows a year of strong business growth, seeing the company’s sales triple and market interest rising strongly.

The unparalleled technological advancement of the NanoOne, offering high-resolution 3D-printing across twelve orders of magnitude and within manufacturing times not achieved by competitors, is behind the recent success of UpNano GmbH (Vienna/Austria). Parallel with establishing a Global Sales division, sales tripled in 2021 and accordingly staff and floor space at the Viennese headquarter have been expanded significantly. Now the company also follows an increasing interest from the US by appointing Erika Bechtold to its leadership team as the incoming Vice President of US Operations in Boston, Massachusetts USA.

NanoOne’s Unparalleled Features

“Demand for our NanoOne printer-range has grown steadily in the last years and 2021 saw another tripling of sold units”, comments Bernhard Küenburg, CEO of UpNano. “By extending the range of our printers, offering retrofit modular solutions and consistently innovating new printing resins, we continue to strive to meet expectations from industry and academia alike.”

The NanoOne series of printers is unmatched when it comes to precision and speed of production. It is capable of producing polymeric parts with a volume ranging from 100 to 1012 cubic micrometer with a nano- and microscale resolution. The system also achieves this at an unprecedented speed, much faster than other systems thanks to the specific optical pathways of the system, the optimized scan algorithms, exceptionally strong lasers and the proprietary adaptive resolution technology. In addition to the standard resin, where the portfolio includes highly transparent and black light-blocking material, hydrogel materials can be used to print in the presence of living cells. Following successful presentations at US trade fairs as well as a surprisingly strong interest from potential customers in industry, academia, and especially med-tech organisations, UpNano now appointed Dr. Erika Bechtold as Vice President of US Operations.

Shared Interest

Erika Bechtold, Ph.D. is currently the Director of Technology Commercialization at Harvard’s Office for Technology Development, supporting the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, at Harvard. She brings with her over 10 years of business development and commercial strategy experience from both academia an industry. “I am so impressed with the NanoOne systems that the team has built”, comments Dr. Bechtold. “UpNano is at a pivotal time of growth, and I’m excited to be joining the team to help promote this commercial-stage system in the US. It’s such a great opportunity at a time of noticeable growth in the 2PP 3D-printing markets.”

In addition to leading UpNano’s US operations, Erika Bechtold will also be involved in supporting ImageBiopsy Lab, Inc. With offices in Austria and the US, ImageBiopsy Lab develops and deploys medical-AI software in the field of musculoskeletal imaging intelligence, enabling physicians and healthcare providers to turn large sets of unstructured data into diagnostic evidence. Both UpNano and ImageBiopsy Lab are supported, in part, by the same investment group.

Bernhard Küenburg adds: “Erika’s business experience and her scientific background are invaluable assets not only for UpNano, but for any technology driven company that has to meet increasing US interest. Therefore, I am also happy that Erika accepted to split her time at UpNano and ImageBiopsy Lab.

In parallel to expanding its US operations, R&D at UpNano continues to play a central part of its business development. Denise Hirner, Head of Marketing and Business Development and co-founder of UpNano, adds: “After scaling up the production capacity of our NanoOne series, our R&D department focuses on numerous innovative features for the systems that will offer even more versatility and the next generation printing system will enable industrial serial manufacturing.” Such continuous strive for improvement and innovation lies at the heart of UpNano’s growing product portfolio in the 2PP 3D-printing area.