This startup’s super metals could soon be in military drones, luxury watches, and chef’s knives

How humans alloy metals is essentially the same today as it was in the Bronze Age: Melt some different metals in a pot and mix them until they form a new, better metal. An early stage startup, Foundation Alloy , has developed a new alloying technique that beats the ingredients instead of melting them. “We’re actually smashing metal powder particles together instead of melting them,” Jake Guglin, co-founder and CEO of Foundation Alloy, told TechCrunch. “We can create properties that other people can’t.” So far, the startup has been selling its bespoke metals in small batches, but Guglin said his company is “constrained by our ability to make stuff, not by the people that want to take it.” Judging by the types of industries Foundation Alloy is selling into, it seems everyone wants better existing metals or entirely new ones. Guglin said that the startup is running pilots with companies in the automotive, aerospace, semiconductor, and defense industries, along with others that make chef’s knives and luxury watches. “We can save them tons of money and tons of tons of waste,” he said. To scale up production to several tons per week by 2027, Foundation Alloy has raised a $22 million Series A round led by Voyager Ventures, the startup exclusive told TechCrunch. …