Velo3D Opens Forge 1: A 289,000 sq ft Metal AM Campus in Livermore

What Velo3D Built

Velo3D officially opened Forge 1, a 289,000-square-foot production campus in Livermore, California, on July 15, 2026. The facility adds roughly 270,000 square feet of dedicated production space to Velo3D's existing Fremont headquarters, giving the company room to scale both its machine assembly and its production printing operations.

The campus is designed to support more than 40 large-format metal additive manufacturing systems from day one, with infrastructure that lets Velo3D expand to over 100 systems over time. Combined with the Fremont headquarters, the company expects to operate up to 125 metal AM systems across its two California locations, which would make it one of the largest integrated metal additive manufacturing environments in North America.

What It Actually Does

The separation between Fremont and Livermore is intentional. Fremont stays the center for research and development, applications engineering, process development, customer collaboration, and qualification. Forge 1 is where qualified applications move into repeatable production. That division matters because the metal AM industry has long struggled with the gap between printing a good part once and printing the same part reliably at scale.

Forge 1 covers the full workflow under one roof: machine assembly, production printing, post-processing, inspection, and quality assurance. Customers can bring a qualified design to Livermore and move it into production without leaving the campus.

The Strategic Context

The opening comes at a moment when domestic manufacturing capacity has become a stated priority across US industry. Aerospace and defense customers, in particular, want supply chains that do not depend on overseas sources for mission-critical metal parts. Velo3D is positioning Forge 1 as part of that broader push.

Former US national security advisor Lt. Gen. (Ret.) H.R. McMaster sent a recorded message to the ribbon-cutting ceremony, citing the importance of strengthening American manufacturing capability. California Senator Jerry McNerney, who has a background in energy and technology policy, was also present. The political framing is not incidental: Velo3D's largest customers include defense primes that need to demonstrate supply chain resilience to maintain program eligibility.

Financial Backdrop

The opening follows a quarter in which Velo3D reported Q2 2026 revenue of $20.7 million, up 52.3% year over year from $13.6 million in the same period last year. Gross margin expanded from 11.7% to 21.5%. The company is not yet profitable at scale, but the revenue trajectory suggests demand for metal AM systems and production services is recovering.

Forge 1 will begin operations in phases as systems are installed and qualified. The company expects capacity to increase gradually as customer programs mature from qualification into production. That phased ramp means the full 125-system scenario is a multi-year target, not a near-term reality.

The Bottom Line

Forge 1 is a meaningful physical commitment to metal AM at scale in the United States. The size of the facility and the planned system count would place Velo3D among the largest metal AM operators in North America. Whether that capacity gets filled depends on whether defense and aerospace programs continue to convert qualification projects into production contracts at the rate the company expects. The physical infrastructure is now in place; the question is whether the orders follow.