TraBTech Secures $6.6 Million Seed Investment

ODTÜ TEKNOKENT-based TraBTech, established in 2013 and developing products and services in additive manufacturing as a subsidiary of BTech, has closed a seed investment round at a USD 6.6 million valuation with participation from corporate and individual investors. Beyond this investment, TraBTech secured EUR 1.3 million in EU funding support for new implant materials it will develop in orthopedics and pediatrics, including advanced materials research and pediatric applications. With these supports, TraBTech aims to commercialize TrabCup, its first serial production hip prosthesis, and complete regulatory processes for newly developed products. The company also plans to relocate its headquarters to Germany for European market entry and prepare applications for U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval. TraBTech is developing a "trabecular implant" series using additive manufacturing—a novel production method also known as 3D printing—that integrates with bone far more rapidly, promotes faster healing, and can be used in both young and elderly patients. The surface technology on the implant, which mimics the trabecular structure of bone, promotes bone and tissue growth, while its porous structure maintains tissue and vascularization at maximum levels. Nano-level roughness creates a special environment for cell attachment. Implants produced with titanium material and additive manufacturing offer high biocompatibility, strength, and friction coefficients alongside flexibility and easy stabilization. This aims to extend the lifespan of implants in the human body and significantly improve quality of life for elderly patients or those who have undergone prior implant surgery. The TraBTech team, which has worked for many years on this technology triggering major transformation in the implant industry, achieved an important milestone by certifying a hip implant project—Turkey's first serial production "Class III" medical device with personalized implants and a rare example globally. The product is targeted to reach the market in 2023.

Tailored solutions for defense, aerospace and healthcare

TraBTech Board Chairman Kuntay Aktaş stated in his remarks that additive manufacturing technologies, also known as 3D printing, constitute an increasingly developing field that they widely utilize. Noting that the company works on applications spanning industrial areas such as defense and aerospace as well as in-body medical implants and biomaterials, Aktaş made the following comments: "We are developing technologies and products on the path to final output in both fields. Our real advantage lies in the ability to design complex structures that this technology brings. We are developing these products with the goal of producing high-quality materials at much lower cost. We are about to launch some of the products we have developed and certified on the medical side as serial production into the field. One of the most important advantages of this technology is that it enables us to produce certain special materials in an accessible manner. In doing so, we are particularly able to produce normally difficult-to-process, expensive materials like titanium—heavily used in aerospace and medicine—by converting them from powder to product. This enables the emergence of much higher value-added products and allows us to develop products in a new area, in a changing area of the world. What we aim for is to become an important global player with our technological knowledge accumulation and experience in that changing world."  

"Previously impossible things become producible"

Aktaş noted that TraBTech, operating in the "deep tech" field, closed a new investment round and continued his remarks as follows: "Through this investment, we are taking an important step toward becoming a global player by strengthening our presence in Germany and the USA. We are trying to both convert our technical competence into global value and create one of the areas where Turkey and our company have a say in the world." Pointing out that the world is moving toward unmanned "dark factories" and a point where more personalized products can be manufactured, Aktaş emphasized that through this technology, things previously impossible will become producible. Noting that as TraBTech they have completed regulatory processes for some medical products, are continuing the process for others, and will file applications for still others, Aktaş stated: "We aim to bring our products that have completed regulatory processes to market within 6 months. These are implants placed inside bodies. New generation, more successful, more technological implants. We are also seeing their proliferation globally. We will try to pull in that direction. We will have entered a path involving new biomaterials and techniques that we have begun here."   Source