On the TechTO stage ×1
First seen on a TechTO stage in 2017. Every TechTO talk is searchable — ask the archive about Alroy ↗
In their words
The Voltera V-One is a printer that sits right on your desk and can print out those circuit boards in the matter of minutes, rather than sending it out to China and spending weeks and weeks waiting for it.
We started talking to these conductive ink experts, electronics experts, and they told us: kids, go get a real job. This is impossible, don't waste your time.
First of all, we are not a long-term solution for your electronics needs. Those factories I was attacking slightly, they are great at what they do, which is mass manufacturing. They're not good at low volume. We're fantastic at low volume, we suck at high volume.
Quick answers
Is Alroy Almeida still CEO of Voltera?
No. Voltera announced on 25 November 2022 that it had decided to part ways with him after nearly a decade. Co-founder Jesus Zozaya, who had been CTO since the company started in 2013, took over as CEO and still holds the role — Voltera's 2026 FLEXI Award release names him as CEO.
What does Alroy Almeida do now?
He is an associate principal at BDC Capital, the venture arm of the Business Development Bank of Canada, where he invests at pre-seed and seed. His LinkedIn headline reads 'Preseed/Seed Investor. Former Founder.'
How did Voltera get started?
Almeida and his co-founders worked in industrial electronics and kept hitting the same wall: they would design circuit boards, send them to factories in China, spend hundreds of dollars, wait weeks, and get them back wrong. Their first proof it could work was an LED lit by a Staples inkjet printer they ran through a band saw and filled with conductive ink.