(Left to right) SprintRay cofounder and CPO Hossein Bassir, CEO and cofounder Amir Mansouri, cofounder and CTO Jing Zhang, President Erich Kreidler (Photo/Courtesy of Erich Kreidler)
SprintRay, a leading 3D printing supplier for dental professionals co-founded by two USC Viterbi alumni, recently won the prestigious 2025 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Greater Los Angeles.
“It’s a recognition of the entire team that got us to win the championship. We popped champagne and celebrated all the contributions that got us here,” said SprintRay CEO and cofounder Amir Mansouri, who earned a Ph.D. from USC Viterbi in manufacturing engineering in 2016 under the direction of Professor Behrokh Khoshnevis. “It also happens to be our 10th anniversary.”
The Entrepreneur of the Year program honors distinguished business and entrepreneurial leaders through a rigorous and competitive nomination and application process. SprintRay was evaluated on its financial success, team strength, social purpose and organizational structure, among other factors.
The company’s extensive portfolio includes custom-made dental products for patients, such as night guards, retainers and dentures; 3D printing devices; a Cloud-based AI design software; and a learning center called SprintRay University, which offers masterclasses and seminars for dental professionals.
SprintRay currently provides 3D printers, software and materials to 30,000 dental clinics globally, with 80% of clinics located in the United States. Profits are in the “hundreds of millions,” according to Mansouri.
SprintRay’s 3D printing ecosystems and manufacturing solutions are designed to meet the dental community’s need for custom-made dental products. By enhancing existing technologies in digital dentistry, SprintRay’s 3D products improve responsiveness to patient needs, reduce manufacturing times to enable same-day dentistry and offer new, affordable treatment options, according to Mansouri.
The company’s advanced Pro 2 3D printer features new optical panel technology that produces nightguards, removable dentures, and highly precise surgical guides for various needs or emergency cases, with lower operating costs and maintenance, user-friendly design and stronger, faster and more integrated technology, Mansouri said.
“Our new 3D printer, Midas, is the world’s first digital restoration press that can print customizable crowns and veneers in just minutes,” he said. “With zero training or upkeep necessary, it’s easy for anyone to print on Midas.”
SprintRay will soon expand to Japan, the Middle East, South America, Latin America, Mexico, Brazil and beyond.
Dr. Wally Renne, assistant dean of technology at the Medical University of South Carolina School of Dental Medicine and SprintRay customer, said the company’s 3D printers are transforming dentistry.
SprintRay’s MoonRay 3D Printer (Photo/Courtesy of SprintRay)
“We’re able to perform dental surgery in a third of the time that we were able to do in the past,” he said. Instead of waiting weeks for a lab to create a surgical guide from a mouth imprint, doctors can now 3D print personalized guides and other appliances in less than an hour, before the patient even leaves the chair.
Trojan Roots
SprintRay’s USC Viterbi roots run deep. Co-founders Mansouri and Jasper Jing Zhang both earned doctorates in manufacturing engineering at USC Viterbi in 2016 and 2007, respectively. The pair met at USC Viterbi’s Advanced Fabrication Lab in 2014 when alumni Zhang was visiting former colleagues. The lab is home to various rapid prototyping and manufacturing equipment, such as 3D printers and design software.
Zhang, whose doctoral adviser was also Khoshnevis, and Mansouri established a strong connection over 3D printing at the lab and created SprintRay’s prototype, a high-resolution 3D desktop printer, in 2014. They founded the company two years later.
Zhang’s said his academic adviser taught him to think outside the box and showed him various innovation techniques, which he applies at SprintRay.
“Professor Khoshnevis was the catalyst who transformed how I approach innovation,” Zhang said. “His creativity class taught me that true entrepreneurship isn’t about avoiding failure but designing through it, much like his pioneering 3D printing that builds structures layer by layer.”
Added Zhang: “His mentorship gave me the courage to take bold risks and the resilience to iterate relentlessly.”
SprintRay President Erich Kreidler, one of Mansouri’s instructors and a part-time lecturer at the Viterbi School in industrial and systems engineering from 2005 to 2021, was recruited by his former student to serve as company president in 2019.
“I saw a lot of potential in Amir and the rest of the team. USC builds an ecosystem of selecting the right students and giving them the right training, ambitions and discipline to work hard with no sense of entitlement,” Kreidler said.
The Trojan network was also a powerful tool for SprintRay’s take-off. When the company was a small team of 10 in 2017, a major distributor chose to partner with them over three other established players. Years later, the distributor told Mansouri he made the decision because they are Trojans, just like his daughters.
“That was the moment I thought, wow, any other school I would not have gotten that contract. And it put us on the map for a lot of things,” Mansouri said.
SprintRay’s workforce is filled with USC talent, including Aayush Patal, senior engineer and inventor; Sina Kalbasi, digital products leader and architect; Arun Parthasarathy, AI engineer; Tim Tian, global quality and R&D; Akash Shegaonkar, senior quality engineer; Yixiang Ding, senior architect; and Ehsan Barjasteh, a product developer creating some of the most innovative biomaterials in the engineering industry.
“A lot of our interns from the technical and engineering side are from Viterbi,” Mansouri said. “We have a strong system of hiring them when they graduate, and we are always looking for more USC interns to grow with us.”
Reflecting on how his USC education helped fuel SprintRay’s success, Mansouri said that his Ph.D. lab was both science and entrepreneurial based. “That was very unique,” he said. “I don’t think that if I landed anywhere else, I would have had that exposure to both business and tech.”
Added Kreidler: “Being a Trojan may open the first door, but what keeps it open is performance. There’s no sense of entitlement; Every Trojan we work with proves their value daily. That’s the culture USC instills. So, forget Silicon Valley. Here in Southern California, we have the right ingredients to make it work and have a global impact.”
Published on August 27th, 2025
Last updated on August 27th, 2025
