The Creators of Forte3D Instruments Made a Deal on ‘Shark Tank,’ and Now They’ve Got to Keep Up with Demand

By Emily Wright | From the May/June 2026 issue of Strings

There are three hardships endemic to string playing that rule a musician’s relationship with their instrument: First, the difficulty. Second, the expense. Third, a stringed instrument’s fragile, temperamental nature. Alas, there is nothing you can do to truly mitigate the first struggle but to practice and find solidarity in the string playing community. On the other counts, there is progress to report, thanks to a small team of extraordinary polymaths and one giant television show.

The premise of ABC’s Shark Tank is simple. Inventors in need of early stage funding appear as contestants in front of would-be angel investors (so called because they incur significant risk, and without them, the project is likely to fail) and offer them a stake in the enterprise in exchange for a proposed amount. Each segment concludes with the investors moving forward with either a negotiation and a handshake deal or a pass. Around 60 percent of the products featured land their creators a deal, but the publicity generated from simply appearing makes even a rejected proposal worth the effort.

As it turns out, the gambit was more than worth it for the folks behind the Forte3D cello that appeared on Shark Tank in November 2025. Founder and lead inventor Alfred Goodrich, Yale biomedical engineering senior Elijah Lee, and award-winning cellist Mike Block delivered a well-practiced pitch for a new kind of carbon fiber instrument that takes advantage of the rapidly evolving technology of 3D printing. Occasionally punctuated by musical rejoinders from a live ensemble playing on matte black Forte3D examples, their description of the challenges string players face was compelling. Who can say if it wasn’t already in the bag beforehand, but Mike Block’s excerpt from the famous Bach G major Prelude burnished the conversation with a warmth and artistry that moved both audience and panel. The deal was sealed. For an investment of $250,000, entrepreneur Lori Greiner would get a 16 percent equity share of the company. The effect was instantaneous: Not a day has passed since the air date without an order coming in.

Make & Benefits

The printer used to make the instruments is a large format FDM (fused definition modeling) machine using a proprietary carbon fiber filament tested for use in aerospace settings. While one set of parts is being printed, newly minted necks, ribs, and scrolls are glued and UV cured onto the carbon fiber plates that comprise the front and back. In terms of production, it takes about five hours to print the components for the standard Forte3D cello, and only two hours for the violin.

But how does it sound? Every Forte3D instrument is built for playability, resonance, and projection. Goodrich says, “Before any instrument goes out the door, I have to feel that I would personally be very happy playing only that instrument for the rest of my life. There’s tremendous acoustic flexibility designed into the instruments. String and bridge choice seem to have more of an impact on our instruments than traditional wooden violins and cellos.” The materials and architecture of these instruments also mean that a minute adjustment to the soundpost can radically change the tone color. I pressed him on options for the cello, as I have yet to find one with outrageous-enough snarl on the low end. To quote Spinal Tap, I want a bass string that goes to eleven. Goodrich is ready for me. “They all have huge bass! It’s just a matter of your string choice to bring out different overtones on the C string.” All of this resonance creates ample opportunity to create a wolf note, but players seem to concur that they’d rather have to navigate a familiar problem than change anything about the sound. I suppose you could call that a ringing endorsement. I’ll see myself out.

Any cellist who has endured the inelegance and risk of flying with their instrument has competing worries that create a sort of ouroboros of fear: The prohibitive cost of an extra ticket kicks things off. Then, even with a ticket, some airlines refuse to allow the thing on board. Placing any instrument in the hold, where it is subject to the vagaries of ground crew and immense changes in temperature, humidity, and pressure, presents an existential risk, which brings us back to purchasing the extra ticket. 

Cellists flying with a Forte3D can rest easy. The instrument has been engineered for this moment, too, having been tested in a hot car cooking away at 152 degrees and left outside for months in the heart of winter in Philadelphia (it did require new strings and a bridge, but was otherwise unscathed). If you’re on TikTok, you can find a video of Goodrich actually standing on the instrument, which he says is not recommended. 

Block offers, “My quality of life on tour has been tangibly improved since I’ve played on a Forte3D cello for two years . . . I enjoy walking through airports with just a backpack, and the cello pays for itself after a handful of flights without buying a second ticket for the instrument!” He also confesses he leaves it in the car when he goes into a restaurant, an otherwise unthinkable act.

Carbon fiber instruments are well established as viable, reliable alternatives to many of their wooden progenitors. Few professional-grade carbon fiber instruments exist anywhere even close to the price point offered by Forte3D. The standard black model hovers right around $3,000, and for a few hundred dollars more, customers can select from a range of designs—from subtle wood grain to bespoke art. Instruments can be purchased online as a standalone or as part of an outfit (an additional $1,100), which comes with a rigid foam case, CodaBow, rock stop, and rosin. Based on hours of testing and listening, a few different string combinations are available, mainly D’Addario Kaplans and a Jargar/D’Addario Helicore mix. Geared pegs are standard issue, as are two wolf eliminators. Violins have some interesting details: a small hole on the back is necessary for sound quality and projection, and a “tone magnet,” similar to the internal wolf eliminators many cellists employ, is used to suppress the occasional inharmonious collision of frequencies and deliver another layer of tonal flexibility.

Research & Development

It’s always refreshing to hear about the setbacks that invariably occur on the way to success, and Goodrich, without a hint of defensiveness, detailed the error prone, human side of this project. “There has been, at least from my perspective, a little too much humanity in this design process. I’ve had ER-worthy cuts, a broken toe, a fingernail that will never grow properly again, and one fire in my guest bedroom that almost got away from us. Luckily my wife reacted quickly with a damp towel to save the day! In the incredibly long and tortuous process of designing these instruments, I think I have witnessed every conceivable way a cello can catastrophically fail. It took 124 cello rib iterations to finally codify a design.” 

The humanity continued right through taping Shark Tank: A few minutes before going on, Goodrich rested a water bottle against his leg, which, inexplicably, stained his trousers irrevocably. Five minutes before taping, he was pants-less, desperately trying to figure out how not to look like a walking disaster during the most important half hour of his life as an inventor. “For some reason, I’d brought a spare pair of pants, which they golf carted across the lot, and we started our pitch just moments later.” Like so many success stories, a little bit of luck (and preparation) never hurts!

Looking ahead, fractional-size violins and cellos are in development, as are violas. Their 14-inch prototype is already creating a rich sound and excellent bass projection that holds its own and then some against the high-quality wooden viola kept in the shop for just such comparisons. At the moment, all of the labor is done by Goodrich and shop manager Will Fredendall. Goodrich describes the experience in positive terms, but the pace has been grueling. “We’re keeping up with demand, but it has been fairly taxing. I’d like to continue along our path of innovation by streamlining the assembly process while maintaining our absolute commitment to acoustic excellence.” Whenever they hit a roadblock, he likes to say, “Physics doesn’t care how much your cello costs.” Indeed. 

Tech History

3D-printing technology was posited as an idea in 1945, the following two decades marking a rise in interest, if not praxis. The concept—sometimes called additive manufacturing—builds upon the idea of an inkjet, where an arm connected to an ink reservoir sweeps back and forth over paper, putting down letters in increments. The first 3D-printing machines initially used fine layers of molten metal to build an object with the same back and forth motion, but instead of a horizontal sequence of letters, the layers deposited one atop the other to create something in three dimensions. 

—EW