James DeMuth was first inspired to co-found Seurat in 2009 when he was working at Lawrence Livermore Labs. At the time, he was working on a nuclear fusion energy project, leveraging an extremely powerful laser capable of delivering over 150 trillion watts of power. To withstand the intense fatigue and temperatures of the fusion environment, we found that we needed special alloys that could not be welded but could be 3D printed.

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The problem was, neither the 3D metal printers of the time—or even today—could do this. The additive manufacturing process is slow. Roughly, it would take nearly 2 centuries for a single printer to make just one fusion chamber.