AML3D LTD (ASX:AL3) - Record FY26 Results Show What Scales Next For AML3D Artwork

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AML3D LTD (ASX:AL3) - Record FY26 Results Show What Scales Next For AML3D

September 16, 2026 • Andrew Musgrave

0:00 | 11:22

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ASX Investment Opportunity - AML3D Ltd (ASX:AL3)

A metal part fails on a ship, the clock starts ticking, and the supply chain suddenly matters more than the design. That’s the lens we bring to our chat with Sean Ebert, Managing Director and CEO of AML3D Limited, as we unpack how industrial-scale metal 3D printing is moving into real defence and infrastructure workflows, not just lab demos.

We talk through AML3D’s record FY26 result, including $12.5 million in revenue growth and the first half-year EBITDA profit, and what changed operationally to get there. Sean breaks down how the ARCEMY® additive manufacturing system works, why the company sells both systems and printed parts, and how contracted work rolling into FY27 and beyond creates genuine revenue visibility. We also dig into the drivers behind strong gross margins and what “pricing power” looks like when your customers are major industrial and defence organisations.

From there, we zoom in on the US Navy scale-up: 14 ARCEMY® systems contracted into the maritime industrial base, a pathway that starts with smaller contractors and moves up to primes like HII and Austal, and a US Navy letter of intent that signals demand out to 2030. Sean also explains the Navy’s “interchangeability” rule and why it could lift adoption of additive manufactured components versus traditional casting and forging. Beyond defence, we explore why Tennessee Valley Authority and other energy-sector wins matter strategically, and what needs to happen before a UK and European footprint becomes more than a plan.

If you care about ASX industrial tech, defence supply chains, additive manufacturing, and what can make or break execution at scale, hit play. Subscribe, share the episode with a mate, and leave us a review with your biggest question about where metal 3D printing goes next.

Andrew Musgrave

Welcome again to ASX Briefs, and I'm joined today by Sean Ebert, the managing director and CEO of AML3D Limited, a metal 3D printing company whose ARCEMY® systems are being adopted across the US Navy supply chain. He joins us to unpack a record FY26 result and what it means heading into FY27. Sean, great to have you with me again and welcome back to the ASX Briefs podcast.

Sean Ebert

Yeah, thanks, Andrew. Thanks for having me.

Andrew Musgrave

Now, Sean, for listeners that may be new to the AML 3D story, can you just provide a brief overview of the company?

Sean Ebert: 00:36

Yeah, well, we're a 3D metal printing company. So, we manufacture metal parts using a 3D technology that we've developed in-house. We're actually one of the largest 3D metal printing companies in the world in terms of the size of parts that we produce. And we actually combine metallurgical science, robotics, and software into a system which we call the ARCEMY® system. That's our proprietary branded system that we use. Now we also sell those systems to customers that want to bring the technology in-house, as well as we produce parts using that technology for customers that want to outsource the work to us.

Andrew Musgrave

And the company delivered record revenue of $12.5 million up 70% on the prior year and its first half-year EBITDA profit of $608,000. What changed operationally to turn that corner into profitability?

Sean Ebert

Well, largely it's been growth in revenue, Andrew. So, we delivered a number of systems in the second half of the year. We delivered a system for Austal. We delivered two systems for HII and that actually helped us with our profitability in the second half of the year. And we also controlled costs fairly tightly in that second half of the year to deliver that profit.

Andrew Musgrave

Now the order book peaked at $29 million through the year, and you're carrying $16.8 million of contracted work into FY27, almost double the prior year's rollover. How much visibility does that give you into the FY27 revenue?

Sean Ebert

Reasonably good, actually. So, about half of that 16.8 million will be earned in the second half of the year. So, that gives us visibility on about nine, eight to nine million of that. The rest of it will be earned over a period of two years. So, based on full lease systems that we've sold to HII. So, we've got visibility into a component of revenue that even stretches into FY28.

Andrew Musgrave

Now gross margins came in at 63%. So, what's driving that and is it sustainable as the business scales?

Sean Ebert

Yeah, we've been very fortunate with our gross margins because we've priced our technology quite well, and we found that we've not had any pressure on pricing from our customers that they've all been very accepting of the recommended retail price that we sell our systems at. So, we've maintained that price. So typically, it's around that sort of 60 to 65% gross margin for the sale of systems and also for production of parts.

Andrew Musgrave

Looking now at the US defence scale up, from a standing start in 2023, the company has now signed contracts to deploy 14 ARCEMY® systems into the US Navy's maritime industrial base. What's been the key to that pace of adoption?

Sean Ebert

Well, it's been quite interesting because when we first entered the US market about three years ago or so, we were selling single systems. So, we're selling single systems to contractors in the supply chain of the US Navy. And then we went from selling single systems sort of three years ago to selling multiple systems. So, companies like Laser Welding bought three systems from us, and then we noticed that it started to move up the supply chain to the primes, like HII, Huntington Eagles, and also Austal. So Austal purchased three systems from us, and then HII purchased six systems from us. So, we've seen it sort of expand from being you know lower in the supply chain to moving up the supply chain to the primes.

Andrew Musgrave

You've also flagged a US Navy letter of intent pointing to demand for up to 100 systems and 1,600 components by 2030. How should investors read a letter of intent versus a binding order book?

Sean Ebert

Well, it was an interesting process for us because what actually happened if we take a step back is in 2024, December, we raised 30 million from the market to expand the US business. Now, when we raised that capital, we actually decided to sit with the US Navy and ask them for guidance on where they would like us to invest that capital. So, are they looking for more systems or are they looking for more parts? And what they suggested to us is that they would give us a specific letter of intent, which would give us guidance on how that would look moving forward to sort of 2030. So, what they did was they said that we're looking for about 100 systems. Now we're about 16 systems into that with a visibility of another 10, which we're working on with them at the moment. And that's come fairly quickly. And then if you look at the parts, there's a new rule that the US Navy have implemented. It was really last week or the week before, which is called interchangeability. And that means that the shipbuilders can now select additive parts over casting and forging. So, we're going to see over the course of time between now and 2030, a real lift in additive manufactured parts being produced.

Andrew Musgrave

And looking now at diversification beyond defence, FY26 saw the company's first ARCEMY® deployments outside defence to the Tennessee Valley Authority and industrial manufacturer FastTech. Why are these wins important strategically, not just financially?

Sean Ebert

Well, strategically it means we're diversifying our customer base into other sectors, and which I think is really quite important. But the energy sector could be a very lucrative sector for us. So, Tennessee Valley Authority went out and went through a competitive bid process of which we were one off, and we won that tender, which was really quite impressive, and then we launched that system into Tennessee Valley earlier last year for them to utilize. Now they're looking for a second system to expand on, and also, it's attracted attention from companies like Florida Powered Light and other energy companies as well. So, or us it's a really strategic, important sort of customer for us to get that diversity in the revenue base.

Andrew Musgrave

And how does moving into utilities, energy, and industrial manufacturing change the risk profile of the business relative to being reliant on defence spending only?

Sean Ebert

Well, it just diversifies the risk profile. So, you're not as dependent on government funding from federal funds from the US Department of Defence. So, we're more or less going into the private sector, which gives us a lot more diversity as to how we sort of operate and we'll reduce that sort of risk profile on earnings.

Andrew Musgrave

Turning now to Europe and the UK, the company has entered the UK defence market through a materials feasibility program with BAE systems and is funding a $5 million European technology centre. What needs to happen for that centre to go ahead?

Sean Ebert

Yeah, so we've determined that we're going to be fairly conservative as to how we approach the UK market. So, we've been fortunate enough to win this work with BAE UK for qualification work and for parts. Now that was a $1.27 million contract, which is now expanding to include more and more parts for BAE, but they're happy for us to do that out of Adelaide. So, we're looking to utilize the assets that we've got in the Adelaide business first. And then what will trigger the setup of the of the facility in the UK will be when there's enough demand in the UK market for that. So, we've got to win work with BAE UK for system sales, and we've also got to win MTC, which is a manufacturing technology centre contract for a system over there which we’re in the middle of negotiating at the moment. And we've actually two of our business development executives over in the UK for the next sort of period working on that demand for us. But until we win that, we won't set up.

Andrew Musgrave

And with defence relationships now in place across all three AUKUS partners, what does AML3D need to do to convert that positioning into contracted work?

Sean Ebert: 09:07

Well, we've just about to finish the qualification work off in Australia. So, Australia, there's a program called DIVQ with the ASA. So that's the Australian Submarine Corp, and that's the manufacture parts for the Australian submarine manufacturing program for under AUKUS. So, what we'll see is we'll be producing parts in the US for new build. We'll also be producing parts for the UK market for sustainment, and the same for Australia out of the Australian market, which we've got a facility for in Adelaide, South Australia.

Andrew Musgrave

Touching now on the balance sheet with over $26 million in cash at bank, you're funding a roughly $12 million investment to double US capacity alongside the European build-out. How are you weighing US expansion against European entry for capital priority?

Sean Ebert

Well, we've allocated $12 million for doubling the US, which I don't think we'll need for the first phase of the US build-out. So, we'll reserve that capital for future years as the demand sort of builds. But we've allocated $5 million for the UK build-out and again, I don't think we'll actually need all of that. So, we'll actually have some surplus cash which we'll use as working capital to manage the business with.

Andrew Musgrave

Turning now to the outlook you've pointed to a $78 million global sales pipeline at year end. What has to convert from that pipeline for FY27 to be another record year?

Sean Ebert

Well, we've got a series of projects that we're working on, and you'll probably see between now and Christmas some announcements that'll come out around that that'll sort of flag and signal those catalysts that will fill that year. Majority of them are actually system sales, so that's where we see the growth of the company. But in saying that, we're also seeing a fair bit of interest in the parts manufacture for that. So, we've got enough between the combination of system sales and that outlook and parts sales to hit our numbers.

Andrew Musgrave

Finally, Sean, looking 12 months out, what would you consider the single biggest risk to executing on this growth plan?

Sean Ebert

I think the single biggest risk for us is how the federal funds flow in the US. Because the demand is there, the positioning of the company is there, the workforce and the operating facility is all set up now in the US. That's now been set up for, you know, at least a good year now, so it's ready and staffed for growth. But the main risk is just making sure that those federal funds flow into the additive manufacturing program as planned.

Andrew Musgrave

Okay, Sean. Well, it's been great to have you on the podcast again. So, thanks for your time, and we look forward to further updates over the next 12 to 18 months.

Sean Ebert

Thanks, Andrew. Thanks for your time. Thanks for hearing me out.

Andrew Musgrave

That concludes this episode of ASX Briefs. Don't forget to subscribe, and we look forward to catching you on our next episode.