The Rice Business Plan Competition: Meet The Champ

TriFusion Devices of Texas A&M University took the top spot  recently at the Rice Business Plan Competition in Houston, hauling in some $400,000. The annual face-off – based at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business – just wrapped up its 16th event doling out some $1.7 million in prizes.

The Trifusion team with sponsors and one of their checks from the Rice Business Plan Competition

We talked with CIO/Co-founder Brandon Sweeney about his business, which develops 3d printing technologies aimed at the health care and sports equipment industries. Edited excerpts:

Hank Gilman: Where did you get the idea for your business?

Brandon Sweeney: It originates from my PhD research. During a job at the Army Research Labs in 2012, I recognized the need to have 3D printed parts that were structurally sound. When I started my PhD the following year, I applied a technique they were using for detecting carbon nanotubes in biological samples using microwaves to solve the stability problem that has always plagued 3D printing.   About a year later when we got the technology working, I met Blake Teipel, now the co-founder and CEO of TriFusion, and he suggested we should use this technology to print custom prosthetic devices like legs, feet, arms, and hands. It was the perfect application of the technology.

Gilman: At what stage are you?

Sweeney: We have developed a 3D printer with an integrated microwave unit that allows us to weld the layers of a 3D printed part together – making it just as strong as an injection molded or machined counterpart. Weak layers are the fundamental problem with 3D printing – for well over two decades now. And that’s what restricts its use to mostly prototypes and toys. We have a partner who is scaling up production of the thermoplastics we use in the printer, and we are printing prototype devices to be tested at the Baylor College of Medicine.