Few new technologies receive more intense interest than 3-D printing. The technology has some predicting that it will revolutionize manufacturing top to bottom, creating new, small-scale manufacturing with little waste.
M&A activity within the 3D printing space is heating up – not because of a flock of different buyers but primarily because of one: South Carolina-based 3D Systems, a NYSE-listed (ticker: DDD | market cap: $4.3B) provider of 3D content-to-print products including printers and imaging software. In the past five years, 3D Systems has acquired at least privately-held 30 companies with 10 of those acquisitions coming in 2012 and 2013, including recently Rapid Product Development Group in May and Valhalla Partners-backed Geomagic in January.
Chris Dixon, the entrepreneur-turned angel investor-turned general partner at VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, today said that he believes the 3D printing movement has the potential to revolutionize manufacturing and that it is an area where he would like to make multiple investments in the future. In contrast, he described startups in areas like social networking facing “general fatigue”. Earlier this month, Chris Dixon and Andreessen Horowitz led a $30 million Series C round in Shapeways, a 3D printing company, where he has now joined the board.
The largest companies in 3-D printing are racing to simplify design software so that it can become as easy to make an object as it is to send a document to a printer.
Interest in 3-D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, is exploding due to the falling cost of machines that can lay down finely targeted layers of plastic to make simple products, like jewelry or sculptures, much as a traditional printer sprays ink onto paper. The idea is that 3-D printers could democratize design and eventually manufacturing by letting anyone make physical things in small quantities, without the expense of an assembly line.
General Electric is making a radical departure from the way it has traditionally manufactured things. Its aviation division, the world’s largest supplier of jet engines, is preparing to produce a fuel nozzle for a new aircraft engine by printing the part with lasers rather than casting and welding the metal. The technique, known as additive manufacturing (because it builds an object by adding ultrathin layers of material one by one), could transform how GE designs and makes many of the complex parts that go into everything from gas turbines to ultrasound machines.
From physical to digital rendering, 3D is being hailed by many as the future, and today, Lagoa, one of software startups in this space, is unveiling a new product, called Lagoa, that’s helping 3D enter a new dimension: a full 3D rendering and collaboration platform based entirely in the cloud. To mark the launch, Lagoa is also announcing a $1.6 million round of seed funding from a strong list of backers: 500 Startups, Atlas Venture, Real Ventures and RHO Ventures, as well as a number of angels.
En una operación llevada con éxito recientemente en EE.UU., se acaba de sustituir el 75% del cráneo de un paciente por un implante creado por impresión en 3D. El implante está realizado en material PEEK, se llama OsteoFab, y ha sido desarrollado por la empresa Oxford Performance Materials. El implante fue aprobado por la FDA en febrero, lo que ha supuesto un gran hito en la impresión en 3D de implantes.
Also known as “additive manufacturing” or “rapid prototyping,” 3-D printing is the printing of solid, physical 3-D objects. Unlike machining processes, which are subtractive in nature, 3-D printing systems join together raw materials to form an object. Drawing on a computer-aided design (CAD) file, the design for an object is first divided into paper-thin, cross-sectional slices, which are then each ‘printed’ out of liquid, powder, plastic or metal materials in sequence until the entire object is created. The use of 3-D printing makes it possible to build physical models, prototypes, patterns, tooling components or production parts.
