Italian 3D printing firm opens U.S. headquarters in Houston
Roboze, a 3D printing company serving the aerospace, energy and manufacturing industries, has opened its U.S. headquarters in Houston to capitalize on the region’s pool of engineering talent and central location.
The company, based in Bari in southern Italy, set up shop in a new building at 7934 Breen Road in northwest Houston.
“We want to really focus now on the U.S. market and have Houston as our second home in the world,” said founder and CEO Alessio Lorusso.
Roboze plans to hire 30 employees to build out its engineering, marketing and sales teams in the next 90 days. It is also expanding in Italy.
The company’s technology is used to fabricate parts such as gaskets, valves and O-rings. The parts are made of a range of materials, including polymers designed to hold up to extreme conditions and high temperatures.
The 3D technology is an alternative to parts that are traditionally machined out of a block of metal by cutting away the material that is not needed.
Lorusso said the Roboze technology eliminates wasted material and produces parts in hours rather than weeks. It also provides manufacturers with the ability to print parts on-site for applications in the chemical, oil and gas and other industries.
Over the next two years, Roboze aims to employ 100 people.
“They’re on the cusp of something that economists and analysts have been talking about for a while,” said Patrick Jankowski, the Greater Houston Partnership’s senior vice president, research, in reference to printing products at the time they are needed rather than stockpiling them in a warehouse for later shipment.
“This is an astute move on this Italian company’s part,” Jankowski said. “There is such demand in Houston for the sort of thing they say they can produce.”
Roboze selected Houston because of growth and product innovation in the space, energy and medical device sectors, Lorusso said. Scientific initiatives at Houston Spaceport and Rice University factored into the decision.
The central location between the East and West coasts and future markets in South America also made Houston a good choice, he said.
Roboze, which counts GE and the U.S. Army among its customers, sells its products to businesses in more than 25 countries.
Expanding during the COVID-19 pandemic comes as companies rethink their supply chains and evaluate ways to get parts either on-site or from shorter distances to minimize disruptions in production.
“It was an acceleration of the business,” Lorusso said. “Companies understand how important it is to be owners of their production process.”