How do we enable you to make whatever you can imagine? Everyday at Shapeways, we wake up to the challenge of answering this question to the best of our abilities.
On a daily basis, we make thousands of unique products and deliver them to people all over the world. We create an online experience that ignites creativity and increases access to the best of 3D printing, at the lowest cost. We work hard to open manufacturing such that everyone — regardless of technical background or expertise — can create the products that populate their lives.
As you can imagine, this is no easy task. To help us realize our vision and support our community, we’re growing an awesome team, building out the “factory of the future” in NYC, and expanding US distribution.
We’re excited to announce that we have a new partner on board to help us fuel our growth and the rise of creative commerce: Lux Capital. Lux led a $6.2M financing, joining existing investors Union Square Ventures and Index Ventures.
We plan to use these additional funds to help the Shapeways team grow and bring creative commerce and 3D printing to everyone. With over 6,000 independent designers selling their products through our marketplace, Shapeways shop owners are tapping into a new economic model in which their products are created on demand for their customers, at no additional cost. With over 30 material options including the recent launch of colored ceramics and Elasto Plastic, our community members have access to materials that rival the quality and cost of what you can buy in a store. And with over 150,000 community members from all backgrounds using Shapeways regularly, we’re in a really exciting time for 3D printing — you no longer need to know 3D modelling software to make ideas real.
Lux’s local NYC presence and network, as well as its expertise in commercializing emerging technologies, will help us as we expand and in particular, build out our NYC “factory of the future.” Josh Wolfe, Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Lux shared, “We seek investment opportunities to help turn technical breakthroughs into world-changing businesses, and see Shapeways at the forefront of bringing the magic of 3D printing to everyday consumers.”
We’re moving really quickly to help bring Shapeways and 3D printing to everyone — to make it easier to make anything you want, to make it more affordable, and to make it faster, and faster.
We’re so lucky to have you on board for the ride.
Happy making,
Pete, Shapeways CEO and Co-Founder
This is fabulous! Very happy for you guys. Shapeways continues to press forward and innovate so it will be nice to not be as limited when finances are involved in that innovation. 🙂
3D printing company Shapeways today announced that it has raised a $6.2 million Series B funding round
Awesomeness!
The awesome thing about 3D printing, is that what you want to make is only limited by your imagination.
Congrats guys!
Thanks for the nice words guys! We are and will keep working hard to become better and better. Keep your eye out!
Pete,
You’ve done an amazing job of not only building a new company, but guiding consumers to a new way of thinking about product. The Feedback loop is ultra-Personal.
I’d love to take a few minutes for a call, if you are open to it.
I work for uFlavor, we have launched with a beverage vending machine that can ‘print’ any beverage that our user creates or has stored in the cloud. Basically We have broken beverage down to each individual ingredient.
Our goals of edible 3D printing are actually much greater than just beverage but I don’t feel it is appropriate to lay it all out here.
Twitter: @uflavor
Thanks
Are you guys selling stock in your company? If yes, what is your symbol, if no do you plan too?
Pete you guys are truly becoming the market leaders in this explosive growth industry. Very excited about the future of 3d-printing and of Shapeways, keep up the amazing work.
-Saad
Shapeways mentioned a while back that we have 3D Printed over one million products which prompted Shapeways community member and designer par excellence Marcus Ritland aka Denali 3D Design to break out Sketchup and visualize exactly what one mil