Partnership to bring large format hybrid 3D printer to market

Engineering teams from the two companies aim to turn the prototype Medusa into a machine ready for shopfloor use, with interest shown already from companies in the automotive, aerospace, construction, medical and renewables sectors.

The collaboration will focus first on design for manufacture and supply chain management. A team from Plymouth-based Applied Automation will also create a dedicated assembly line and testing area at its facility to help ensure the target of an early 2026 release is met.

This new technology is expected to generate over £5m of revenue from first year sales and could create up to ten jobs across the two firms.

“We are fantastic at innovating and developing new technology that is changing the way companies adopt additive manufacturing,” Martin Jewell, CTO of Exeter-based Rapid Fusion, said in a statement. “However, we are not set-up to manufacture the solutions we create in low to medium volumes. Our initial robot systems - Apollo and Zeus - have been developed in partnership so it made perfect sense to give Paul [Paul Rowe, director of Applied Automation] and his team the opportunity to build Medusa.