While age-old business advice tells entrepreneurs to “aim for the stars,” Oluseun Taiwo, the chief executive officer and co-founder of Solideon, is building the next-generation spacecraft to get them there. His Berkley, California, start-up is working to bolster aerospace manufacturing capabilities to meet the space sector’s current demands with additive technologies.

“Humanity has the potential to be a space-faring civilization. I believe that the universe is not just full of wonder, but it’s also full of things that will make our lives better on Earth,” explains Taiwo. 

Launching a Career in Aerospace Innovation

Taiwo graduated from Northern Illinois University with a bachelor’s degree in manufacturing engineering technology in 2017. He launched his career at Rocket Lab USA, a California-based aerospace design and manufacturing company. The work put Taiwo at the center of aerospace innovation, helping in the production and manufacturing of rocket engines using additive technology.

Over the next three years, Taiwo followed the development of additive manufacturing. His next career move took the young professional to Texas, where he worked as a research and development engineer for an industrial machinery manufacturing company. But Taiwo would not be away from the aerospace sector for long. He returned to California in 2019 to start a role with Virgin Orbit, where he worked to apply 3D manufacturing methods to high-performance rocket engines. 

While the COVID-19 pandemic brought much of Virgin Orbit’s operations to a standstill, Taiwo continued his work, 3D printing rocket components from home. “I started to think that if a company was building some of the most advanced components in the world, then why wouldn’t it be an advanced manufacturing company? Those two things didn’t have to be mutually exclusive,” he says.

Accelerating Growth, Manufacturing Advancement

Taiwo moved to Denver, Colorado, in 2021. While he had moved on from his role with Virgin Orbit, the engineer could not shake the untapped potential of 3D printing he had witnessed. When his new employer turned down Taiwo’s manufacturing concept, he was unafraid to take the first step into entrepreneurship. 

The same day he quit his job, Taiwo and his eventual co-founder Anthony Dean emailed TechStars, a renowned startup accelerator program and investment firm. The subject line, which read, “3D Printing Humanity Through the Solar System,” would eventually become Solideon’s unofficial tagline. The next day, Taiwo and Dean received their official invitation to join the next TechStars cohort, surpassing more than 400 other companies who had applied. 

“We were one of the earliest-stage companies there and didn’t necessarily even know that a letter of intent was yet. And now we’re raising the most funds from our cohort,” Taiwo recalls. “I think we took the most from the class because we started with a blank slate on how a company should look, and we built off that.” 

The Solideon founders just celebrated $3.5 million in funding, surpassing its initial goal of $2 million. According to Taiwo, the team is settling into its newly constructed space in Berkley, which serves as the hub for its proprietary take on additive manufacturing. 

The Future of Living and Working in Space

While an intergalactic adventure might be thrilling to some, the Solideon CEO sees the opportunity to work and live in space as an opportunity to improve life on Earth. Rich in minerals and other materials, our solar system could provide extensive resources for manufacturing, says Tawio. Asteroid mining and extraterrestrial manufacturing could possibly reduce the strain on Earth’s already limited resources. 

“Aerospace is the way humanity becomes multi-planetary, which means a better, cleaner Earth for us and our kids someday,” Taiwo says. “But this awesome vision will never matter if we can’t make the cost of space travel more affordable.”

Solideon is already leveraging its advanced manufacturing technology to accomplish that. Its fully integrated collaborative robotic additive manufacturing system, dubbed Aperture, is built as a singular platform with patented 3D welding capabilities and robotic assembly. 

“3D gives us an autonomous opportunity in which you can design something on Earth and transmit it to a remote factory in space where it could be constructed,” Taiwo explains. “We can have sustainable manufacturing with millions of factories. Or we could put it to work, building vital infrastructure on different planets before humans arrive.”

More Than Just a Race to the Stars

Since the company’s launch in 2022, Taiwo understood that innovation in manufacturing would be a key to growing the space economy. But unlike many other aerospace brands, his vision is more than just a race to the stars. Solideon is working to advance space manufacturing, transportation, and infrastructure that establishes humanity as a space-faring civilization and improves and sustains our lives on Earth. The company slogan says it best, “Advancing manufacturing. Advancing humanity.”

“What does a 3D-printed rocket actually look like…a flying saucer? I don’t know,” he jokes. “But our technology is going to help us decide that. We can design, build, and fly products in weeks instead of years. And that is going to help make this vision a reality.” 

Twaio and his team are currently working to secure additional funding. Explore Solideon’s technology and space-going mission at solideon.com