X-ray CT technology developer, Lumafield, recently raised $35 million in a Series B round led by Spark Capital.  Lumafield says it has developed the the world's first accessible x-ray CT scanner for engineers.  The startup says the scanners and its cloud-based software can help companies solve tough engineering challenges at every stage of the product development process.  Scott Johnston, co-founder and head of engineering at Lumafield, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.

Closing Bell

Lumafield Raises $35M, Announces Updates to its Affordable Desktop CT Scanner

the x ray CT technology developer loom a field raising at 35 million in a series B round led by spark capital lima field saying it's developed the world's first accessible x ray cT scanner for engineers. The startup says along these scanners and it's based software, I can help companies solve tough engineering challenges at every stage of the product development process. So joining me now is scott johnston, co founder and head of engineering at lumen field scott. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Tell me what is behind you. It looks like some of the technology. Yes, absolutely. I'm here with our machine, this is our Neptune C. T scanner and as you said, this is the world's first accessible x ray cT scanner. Uh we've all dreamed of being able to see and with x ray vision, especially those of us who design and manufacture things real world products. Um and now it's available to anybody who works in this space. So you can see on the inside here, I put a part in here, you can it works a lot like a ct scanner at your hospital where we're taking a lot of x ray images at a very high resolution, doing some fancy math on them, sending them up to the cloud and coming up with a three D model from that result. So I can simply put this part in here, close the door, um switch it on and we can start taking uh start taking x ray pictures right now. And because this process takes a few seconds, I can bring you over here and show you what the result is. This is our software here which is a huge part of what we're doing. This runs right in your web browser and what you can see here is this part which we've scanned previously. This is that same inhaler. But now as it open with a knife you can see inside and really dive in and see To understand how it works and if you're a designer or manufacturer of parts this is unbelievable superpower. And we believe that this has tremendous transformative potential in this industry. The technology is very impressive and I really appreciate as Scott the demonstration here with the technology to so you just raised 35 million. How are you going to use that money to expand your business? That's right. Well for starters we're going to make a lot of these machines and get them out into the market. We're also gonna be growing our team and uh you know we'll we'll start hiring for a bunch of positions all across the organization uh as we try to bring this thing and bring it, you know take it from a technology that was once you know very difficult and expensive to access and really try to get it into the hands of everybody right now. Are there companies already using this? Yes we have quite a few customers already and uh yeah it's really exciting to see what they're doing with this. Uh So I see the scanners cost $3,000 a month, if you can Scott explained to me um just in terms of which companies are actually using this and what their own commitments are. Looking like. We have some of these companies on the screen now. Yes, that's right, I can't see this. We have we have quite a few companies using this in a wide range of industries really, and and that's one of the things that I found really delightful about this is that it's not just people working in, you know, niche industries like aerospace, but it's people working with consumer product packaging, it's people working with, you know, clean tech, it's people working in footwear, it's it's just this very broad range of industries because ultimately everybody who makes products, whether they're whether they're flying on rocket ships or in your grocery store have to deal with the same kinds of challenges. And this allows people to answer questions that previously would have taken them weeks in hours or maybe even minutes. So it's my understanding too, that you have a big ai advancement that you're announcing today as well. What is that? Our big ai advancement is uh 300 X. Oh yes, yeah, that's right, yeah, 300 X faster. Um And uh yeah, okay, we're showing off the technology here, yeah, the X rays were showing off the technology here are their broader use cases for this scott beyond what it's being used for right now. Um Yes, I mean, you know, I believe that, you know, the future of x ray ct scanning, it'll be like what happened with three D printing 10 or 15 years ago? We're going to see a technology that was once very niche and high end become truly ubiquitous in the design process. You're gonna see it used everywhere from the earliest moments of the design cycle, all the way through into manufacturing sites all over the world. Super cool scott johnson, thank you for the demo. Really appreciate it scott, the co founder and head of engineering at lumen field.