[stock_market_widget type=”card” template=”basic2″ assets=”VELO” realtime=”true” api=”yahoo-finance”]
Metal 3D printing is not the most intuitive business to follow if you have never worked in aerospace or advanced manufacturing. At its core, it means using industrial machines to build complex metal parts layer by layer from a fine powder, instead of cutting, casting, or machining them from a solid block. The parts that come out are often geometrically intricate, stronger for their weight, and far more difficult to make any other way. That is the market Velo3D, Inc. (NASDAQ: VELO) operates in, and it has been a busy week for the small-cap Fremont, California company.
Velo3D makes what are called laser powder bed fusion printers, which are large, precision machines that use powerful lasers to melt and fuse thin layers of metal powder into finished components. Its flagship Sapphire XC platform can produce parts in nickel superalloys and titanium at sizes and geometries that conventional manufacturing simply cannot achieve without prohibitive cost or lead time. The company’s customers have historically been concentrated in aerospace, defense, and national security programs, including contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense that anchor a significant portion of its current backlog.
In addition to the business of a company, their board of directors is also very important. Often overlooked by investors because of the focus on revenue numbers and contracts, but for a small-cap industrial company trying to grow beyond a single market, the composition of that board matters quite a bit. Good directors bring networks, credibility with institutional investors, and the kind of experience that helps management teams navigate government relationships, community stakeholders, and long-term strategic decisions. For Velo3D, which is actively expanding beyond its defense base, adding the right voices to the boardroom is part of the same story as signing new commercial deals.
Lily Mei, the former eight-year Mayor of Fremont, California, is joining the board as an independent director. She brings a background spanning city government, tech industry leadership, and academia, where she currently heads an emerging leaders institute at San Francisco Bay University.
CEO Arun Jeldi said the appointment was a deliberate one. “Her experience building partnerships between government, industry, and educational institutions makes her a natural fit,” he said, pointing to the company’s push into new strategic markets.
Two days before the board news, on June 9th, the company announced a separate development that may carry longer-term financial weight. Velo3D and Aurelia Technologies, a Texas-based developer of small-scale gas turbines designed to run on multiple fuel types, announced a formal strategic partnership. The idea is to apply Velo3D’s additive manufacturing capabilities to the design and production of next-generation turbine components. Gas turbines are used in distributed power generation, industrial applications, data centers, and propulsion, and they contain exactly the kind of high-temperature, high-stress components where the ability to print complex metal geometries in a single piece, rather than assembling many machined parts, can reduce failure points and cut production time significantly.
The program between the two companies is structured in phases, starting with component feasibility evaluation and material development, then progressing toward formal qualification and low-rate initial production using the Sapphire XC platform. The goal, as Aurelia has described it, is to consolidate multi-part assemblies into fewer integrated components, reducing fasteners, joints, and long-term maintenance risk while improving design flexibility and supply chain responsiveness. For Velo3D, the deal matters because it extends the company’s revenue opportunity beyond defense into commercial energy and propulsion, markets that represent a substantial addressable opportunity for precision metal manufacturing over the long term.
The context for both announcements is a company at what appears to be a genuine inflection point. Velo3D reported 48% year-over-year revenue growth in Q1 2026 and achieved positive gross margin for the first time. The existing defense backlog, anchored by a $9.8 million Department of Defense indefinite-delivery contract and a $32.6 million Department of Defense production contract, provides a baseline, while the Aurelia partnership and the board’s evolving composition suggest a deliberate effort to broaden both the customer base and institutional credibility of the business
The board appointment and the gas turbine partnership, taken together, reflect a company trying to do what many small-cap industrials talk about but rarely execute cleanly: add governance depth while simultaneously opening new commercial doors. Whether that combination translates into durable revenue growth is a question the next few quarters will begin to answer.
