Several existing shareholders including Woodford have returned to back a $17m funding round for Metalysis, which produces metal powders for 3D printing.

Metalysis, a UK-based metal powder producer exploiting research from University of Cambridge, raised £12m ($17m) in funding yesterday from a consortium including Woodford Investment Management.

Interogo Treasury, the asset management arm of furniture retail chain Inter Ikea’s parent company Interogo Foundation, also took part in the round, as did Draper Esprit, ETF Partners and Hercules Capital.

Founded in 2001, Metalysis has developed a solid-state process to produce powders of metals and commercially known as well as new alloys.

The company’s…