Now of course its not only that low price of $50 that was killing Cathy’s business, its the fact that its spread out over this massive massive object, this huge brace. Now, for you, a hand brace may not be huge, but it’s gigantic in 3D printer land. At Materialise, they taught us how to think of 3D printing in a teacup. We were told to look for 3D printing applications that were golf ball-sized. This has led me, for 15 years, to look for high-value, meaningful, golf-ball-sized things everywhere. Since then, the economics have changed a bit. But I fear the massive. Instead, I look for thin things. I seek things with few layers. And as good 3D printing people, we should have warned Cathy about these massive braces. Let’s guide her instead toward something better. Something wispy thin, 25 grams of thinness perched on your nose. So thin and personal, and meaningful. Let’s make glasses frames.

What does this mean? That we’re getting six times as much product per kilo! And that means that if one fails, it won’t be 15% of our build that fails. We won’t have this gigantic penalty if one massive 150-gram thing fails QA or is returned by the customer. And if we can charge $50 for the glasses just like we did for this brace, then we’re golden. Value to the customer is expressed by her, in her thoughts. And it’s wholly dependent on what she is buying, and when. A brace could be $50, but if I told you it was $85, you might believe that was the price of a brace. Sunglasses at $50? Expensive. Designer sunglasses at $50? Cheap. Do the other sunglasses not have a designer? Who made them?

So this is already amazing, because if I told you that you could sell an ear of corn and you just thought maybe you’d sell one for $1, you’re missing the point. One ear of corn could be a third of a cup of kernels, which could be turned into 3 cups of popcorn. You could sell that at the movie theater for $6. What can we make with additive is a question that usually turns to the personal, the obvious. We’re blinded by possibility, so we pick the same stuff others do. But we may also pick something fundamentally limiting, like a massive personal brace. A svelte, thin, gossamer glasses frame, on the other hand, has much better economics. So don’t think just of an ear of corn. Don’t think only in terms of what you can get out of the printer or what’s available now, but what you can make with it.

Invisalign sells smiles. People will pay much more for a smile than a little flimsy plastic aligner. So the 3D printed part could be a part, an intermediate, a part of a system, or a dream. So what happens when, with the same machines, we switch to glasses? Above, we can see a (generally well-working, far from perfect, but made to illustrate the levers on production) model of what would happen if we printed braces on our machines with a 5% scrap rate, a $ 35-an-hour labor rate, and 5 minutes of labor time per part in coneyancing, post-processing, and packaging. We can also see a significant difference if we, or someone else, just comes in on the weekends to turn around the machines. So no post-processing or anything; just take the build box out and turn the machine around, which should be doable in about 15 minutes per machine. Below is what happens when we switch to glasses frames. Now, of course, profit in the table below is very, very far away from meaning actual profit. We need to calculate a lot of things, like taxes, financing, and other business-related expenses, on top of some 3D printing expenses, which we will add later. But the idea is to take you on a journey where you can see the wild swings in yield and revenue once we change these important levers in the process, business, or design.

Oh yeah, baby, it’s time for Cathy to surprise her husband Tom with a Lexus with a bow for Christmas. Bad news, I’m afraid. We now have a huge scrap rate because these glasses must fit together and be even. People will notice if they’re askew. People will notice color differences, too. People have higher expectations for the detail level and surface finish of glasses. And we will definitely need some extra post-processing for closing the surface texture, dyeing, or similar. So a 30% scrap rate is more like it. And if we add that to our little model, then the picture changes again.

Ouch, but still, at 10% packing density and at a 30% scrap rate, we’re producing so many thin glasses per month that we’re rolling in dough. If we had a lower 8% packing density, we might leave as much as twenty grand a month on the table in this (rather optimistic) example. We’re still doing 2 minutes of cleaning and handling per part, 3 minutes of QA, and we’ve now added 5 minutes of assembly and post-processing since we want to snap some glasses in there and glue in a hinge. And we have to add $13 for the lenses. And the solopreneur thing has to go, of course.

In the HP scenario, the workload would lead up to us needing five full-time employees. With Formlabs, we would need 7 full-time employees and 1 part-timer to handle all this work. Now again, this presupposes that we’re selling out all the time. The machine can produce $1 per minute, but we have to sell the right amount per minute as well. If they’re aligned (or we can build in buffers, or scale at will), we’re good to go.

We’d also have to look long and hard at whether this business was even worthwhile at this point. With less than 100k in revenue per employee, we’ve essentially just started a high-tech Chipotle franchise. And what is this business? We’re investing a lot of people and time, but where are we building up the capacity to win? Where are we investing in a strategy? Where are we making a plan and path to victory more likely? Am I a pizzeria where 7 full-time people are building an oven? Have I actually maneuvered myself into a corner and am I paying miners to dig when I should be designing jewels like Swarovski?

Shine Like Swarovski

Always remember Swarovski: Swarovski is an industrial crystal-cutting business. They then made crystal-cutting tools. In 1935, they parlayed their crystal expertise into binoculars. How many people do they have digging out quartz? How many people do they have designing jewelry? The cost per kilo of their products increases over time; it’s insane. A kilo of raw quartz may cost $10 per kilo; cut it, and its value increases to $100; turn it into a rhinestone shape that Swarovski retails to jewelry makers, and you could sell it for $ 1,500 per kilo. So a lot of people would be happy to do that or diversify into a business that enables it; it seems like a solid play. Instead, they also sell jewelry made from that cut crystal and metal for $5,000 per kilo. And the genius of it? With retail prices of around $100 to $200, they’re affordable for relatively many consumers. A lot of people are super focused on “core business.” Well, Swarovski could be defined as the “enoblement of quartz crystals.” If it saw itself as digging for quartz, it would never have gotten so far.  And a lot of people think of focusing on not retailing jewelry, selling stones, and making equipment all at the same time, but these businesses do aid one another and help insulate them from downturns.

In our brace business, what’s defensive here? How can we win? How can we really grow? How about in our sunglasses business? What have we really bought ourselves here? It’s all stuff to do with marketing, and may be tied to very quickly dissipating trends. Now we could take advantage of them and quickly produce models faster than others can. Or we could make some really exciting models that get press or bring people in the door without having to worry about whether they sell. This could help us win, but if we’re not doing this, then we’re not really taking advantage of additive. And we’re not likely to win against people who have lower per-unit costs than we do.

But we’ve changed our offering too. What we see is that we have a much more complete final product, but if we had designed it as just a 3D printed product, it would have been so much more profitable for us. So adding parts in combinatory manufacturing lets us make end products but also significantly reduces profitability. And we didn’t include a box; look at COGS from the customer side, look at marketing costs, and all sorts of other expenses.

Marketing costs could add $15 per pair for online campaigns, but Cathy may have to pay as much as $40 per pair to influencers, branding, or Google in a crowded landscape. That may not make them profitable. And the costs here are significantly higher than the production costs of many glasses sold by retailers, even the high-end ones. In reality, you’d struggle to make this work. Building a brand and getting attention would be super important. Now, if Cathy focused on a particular niche or had amazing designs, she could survive. But in this business, is she investing to thrive? She’s making stuff, but is she building skill and differentiation? And is she using the technology and her time well?

Let’s imagine that she buys a 3D scanner and then spends about 10 minutes per customer scanning their faces to make custom-fit safety glasses. Maybe some premium, super-comfy glasses for the nice people at SK Hynix or something.

So we’ve killed our TAM and SAM, which has made our market much smaller. And we’re spending more. So, on a spreadsheet or VC slide, this may seem like a worse business to many people. But this may be a much more defensible business. Maybe Cathy can really use additive here to push a better product. Maybe she can do research and prove that her custom-fit safety glasses are, in fact, much safer? Maybe she can conduct additional research showing that, because they are more comfortable, people are more likely to wear them longer, which will reduce the number of accidents per employee-hour. Away from fickle consumers, Cathy can get long-term contracts with big companies to scan all of their employees. For a reasonable premium and a reasonable price, she can make ASML‘s employees safer. She may even be able to make realistic calculations of how her safer safety glasses save money. And she can fill her machines with long-term contracts and long-term relationships. So this may actually be the best business for additive. And by optimally using the individualized 3D printed face scans for safety shes’s going to be optimally using additive to differentiate and sell. Now, she has a custom product, which is much more difficult. But by now she’s got the manufacturing, quality control, and shipping aspect down. She’s trained her people well and knows that the team is up to the challenge. And with care and attention, they can grow into doing these glasses better than anyone. Now her investment in a place, machines, and staff can go straight to differentiation and improving the value proposition relative ot others. This means that she’s in control of her future. It also means that excellence in scanning, design, additive, or her software could give her a lasting advantage, something difficult to imagine in sunglasses.

I hope this was useful in showing the logic of designing a 3D printing business. This model is frankly OK. But, more importantly, you can understand what is going on and why things changed. This model is meant to help you understand the right levers in laser powder bed fusion costing. I wanted you to understand the cost drivers and the different influence they have. I also hope that you can now see a clearer path to additive success. A lot of things really matter in the business of making matter matter. Hopefully you’ll now look at the world through a teacup.

Images courtesy of 3DPrint.com/Joris Peels, unless otherwise noted

CRADAs in the Department of Energy’s (DOE) national laboratories system saw a drastic decline in the first couple decades of the 21st century, but they seem to be making a comeback. In 2024, Sandia National Laboratories signed the second-highest number of CRADAs in a single year in its history. Aside from persistent work by the DOE to streamline the contracting process, one of the explanations may be the rebounding interest in nuclear energy. 3D Systems, for instance, just announced a CRADA with Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) surrounding the use of additive manufacturing (AM) for nuclear reactor components.

3D Systems will work with SRNL’s Advanced Manufacturing Collaborative (AMC), a 60,000 square foot, $50 million facility opened about a year ago on the University of South Carolina (USC) Aiken campus. Along with demonstrating AM’s potential for enhancing the design of parts used in conventional nuclear systems, such as valves, pumps, and heat exchangers, 3D Systems and SRNL also plan to explore AM’s synergy with newer technologies like small modular reactors (SMRs).

Additionally, 3D Systems plans to capitalize on the AMC’s relevance to workforce development, and the fact that the company is also headquartered in South Carolina should give it ample opportunity to do so. 3D Systems notes that it is focused on maximizing the CRADA’s ability to deliver results directly applicable to real-world commercialization.

Image courtesy of SRNL

3D Systems has good reason to feel like it can hit the ground running in its partnership with SRNL. One of the company’s greatest assets is its aptitude in leveraging DfAM for thermal management solutions, which is indispensable both for nuclear and for the downstream infrastructure anticipated to be most dependent on nuclear in years ahead: data center cooling hardware.

Thanks to its longtime presence in the defense market, 3D Systems also has a solid track record with building up its R&D work into commercially-viable technologies. In the context of nuclear energy, moreover, there is more than the typical overlap between what works for defense and what works in most strategic sectors. Aside from the fact that 3D Systems mentions defense applications as within the purview of its anticipated activity with SRNL, the US Army just announced a $2.2 billion deal to build SMRs on five domestic US Army bases.

If SMRs ever indeed gain widespread traction, co-location of production capacity enabled by AM adoption could end up being integral to SMR maintenance strategies, especially given the involvement of the US Army, which appears to be aiming to heavily expand its organic industrial capabilities. Even if SMRs don’t represent the future of nuclear, meanwhile, progress on AM applications for nuclear energy could still pave the way for co-location of AM MRO infrastructure with nuclear reactor sites.

Finally, it’s nice to see 3D Systems identify workforce development as a specific advantage of the SRNL deal. This is one of the main reasons why I think that more private companies need to be pursuing CRADAs with national laboratories. But, as I mentioned, SRNL’s location on a university campus in 3D Systems’ home state makes that incentive particularly attractive here.

Featured image courtesy of SRNL & 3D Systems

IperionX is getting this money now specifically for fastener production. Fasteners may seem a little low value and humdrum an item to lavish so much money and attention on, but they’re crucial in keeping everything together. Titanium fasteners can be found in military helicopters, tanks, submarines, all over. At the same time, while the Berry Amendment is a fine motivator for securing high-value military deals and for funding new programs with a Made in the USA element, it’s the overlooked basics that the military is now tending to. Fasteners are just the kind of thing that hasn’t seen enough attention and investment, just the kind of thing that has moved overseas and has been left to atrophy in the US.

Titanium scrap for recycling. Image courtesy of IperionX.

The company is now focusing on bots, track pins (hinges for tank treads), and other fasteners. They will be tested at Detroit Arsenal and the Army Research Laboratory’s Aberdeen Proving Ground. The company thinks it may yet enter refractories, including the mythical C103, which the firm is pursuing with Global Advanced Metals. The company wants to look at recycling and producing Niobium powders. C103 may be used in applications such as hypersonics and missiles. C103 is susceptible to contamination; scrap flows will either have to come from discontinued weapons systems or from chips and turnings of people working with C103 right now. Getting control of that waste stream would be extremely valuable. But even if we look at decommissioned vehicles, then things like Titan III missiles and Space Shuttles. Decommissioning the Minuteman III ICBM could involve Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and the DLA and is generally a delicate thing politically and technically. So I’m not sure how much there is out there of C103 crap, but if you can get it, then it would be valuable. Some reports suggest there could be less than 100 tonnes of refractory scrap generated by the US military per annum, whereas there may be over 70,000 tonnes of steel and iron.

IperionX titanium components. Image courtesy of IperionX.

IperionX CEO Taso Arima said,

“This second U.S. Army task order represents an important step in scaling IperionX’s titanium powder-to-part manufacturing platform. The SBIR Phase III award aims to advance continuous and industrial-scale HSPT and dehydride capacity and bring titanium fastener finishing fully in-house at our Virginia titanium manufacturing facility.This award aligns with GenX, our next-generation continuous HAMR production platform, which together will provide an integrated American titanium manufacturing system. The program will expand our capacity to manufacture titanium track pins, bolts and fasteners for the U.S. Army, shorten production lead times and strengthen the domestic titanium manufacturing capabilities required to support U.S. defense supply chains.”

The company wants to offer shorter lead times and increase capacity by producing them in-house in Virginia. By going from scrap to part in a single facility, the company should be able to build up an efficient operation there.

To me, the fasteners are actually much more interesting than the niobium. Even in the great pivot from the exotic to the mass through the magic of the forge, American firms tend to focus on high-value items. But if you can do an integrated energy-efficient powder-to-part production business for low-value items, you may, in fact, be impossible to dislodge. What’s more, I could totally imagine getting $5 million for some Niobium production startup, while getting the same amount for fasteners would be harder. VC models focus on moats and the difficult. But if you could reliably make millions of fasteners for the military each year, it would be a very defensible business.

China

Rongsu Raises CNY 100M for Metal AM Push

Rongsu Technology (荣速科技), a Suzhou-based directed energy deposition metal AM company, closed a CNY ~100 million ($14.9 million) Series A+ round from Kunlun Capital, which invested alone. The company simultaneously launched SnowX, a consumer sub-brand targeting desktop metal 3D printers. No product specifications or ship date have been announced.

Farsoon’s RMB 3.91B Placement Advances

Farsoon Technologies received formal SSE acceptance for its private placement of up to RMB 3.91 billion ($581.8 million). The acceptance is a new regulatory step from the April filing. About 60% of the total, RMB 2.356 billion, is for a services platform; RMB 1.08 billion ($160.7 million) goes to production capacity and RMB 480 million ($71.4 million) to a global operations center.

Farsoon at TCT Asia 2026. Image courtesy of Farsoon.

HeyGears G1 Kickstarter Tops $14.6M

HeyGears‘ G1 Kickstarter reached $14.65 million from approximately 3,400 backers with 15 days remaining. The G1 combines full-color resin printing and UV printing in one desktop system.

HeyGears G1. Image courtesy of HeyGears.

FAW Opens 43-Printer AM Center

FAW opened an Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center in Changchun equipped with 43 industrial printers supporting eight process types: SLA, SLS, FDM, MJF, SLM, EBAM, EBM, and binder jetting. The center serves development, tooling, spare parts, and small-batch production for Hongqi, Bestune, and Jiefang vehicles. FAW reported RMB 30.59 million in savings on Hongqi interior trim attributed to the center.

LandSpace Achieves Historic Booster Landing

LandSpace‘s ZhuQue-3 first stage completed the first vertical booster recovery by a private Chinese launch company on August 19, touching down approximately 390 km downrange in Gansu Province. AM components are standard on Zhuque-3 engines. The booster toppled post-landing due to a fire that weakened one leg, so reuse has not been demonstrated.

LandSpace’s ZhuQue-3. Image courtesy of LandSpace.

South Korea

KHNP Validates 3D Printed Nuclear Part

Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power validated a 3D printed generator-circuit-breaker cooling impeller over 18 continuous months of nuclear plant operation. The result is the first long-duration nuclear-environment validation of a metal AM replacement part reported in Korea.

Lincsolution Opens Defense AM Hub

Lincsolution opened its aerospace and defense AM hub at its Daejeon site, linked to a 200,000-plus-square-foot facility with production scheduled to be completed in December. The hub operates on air-gapped, network-isolated systems.

T&R Biofab Revenue Rises 25%

T&R Biofab reported first-half 2026 revenue growth of 25% to approximately $8.5 million. The company holds FDA 510(k) clearance for TnR CI, a bioresorbable PCL/beta-TCP cranial implant, and is actively seeking a US distribution partner.

T&R Biofab engineers work on bioprinted products and medical implants. Image courtesy of T&R Biofab.

Graphy Aligners Reach 300,000 Cases

Graphy‘s shape-memory polymer dental aligner reached approximately 800 subscribing Korean dental clinics and 300,000 cumulative cases. The Korean press is citing Align Technology’s $85 million acquisition of Cubicure as competitive context for Graphy’s direct 3D printing approach to aligners.

Australia

SPEE3D Prints 32 Parts During RIMPAC

SPEE3D‘s Expeditionary Manufacturing Unit completed its first at-sea cold-spray AM deployment aboard the Canadian support vessel MV Asterix during RIMPAC 2026. The deployment produced 32 mission-critical metal parts: 8 made at sea, 24 via reachback from Knoxville, Tennessee.

3D printed metal parts produced during RIMPAC 2026. Image courtesy of SPEE3D.

Fusetec Launches $800K Dental Model Project

Fusetec and the University of Adelaide launched an $800,000 project to develop patient-specific 3D printed dental training models that mimic the soft surgical tissue response for use in clinical training.

Prepared by AMPulse

$22.5M for a 600-Printer Farm

Hike Medical has raised $22.5 million in seed and Series A funding as it expands its medical device business. The financing was led by Max Altman at Saga Ventures. Indicator Ventures, Fifth Down Capital and RiverPark Ventures also participated. Orthofeet joined as a strategic investor and commercial partner, along with several angel investors.

The San Francisco-based company started with custom foot orthotics, using 3D printing to make devices for individual patients. A patient’s feet are digitally scanned, and that data is used to make a custom device at Hike’s SoleForge facility in Peoria, Illinois. That facility has grown into what Hike calls the largest orthotics 3D printing farm in the U.S., with hundreds of printers running around the clock.

Production times have also dropped from weeks to days, according to Hike, while remake rates have fallen from about one in 15 devices to one in 400, the company reported.

But Hike wants to go beyond custom insoles. The company also has software for clinicians and AI tools that help with insurance paperwork and other administrative tasks. The idea is to handle more of the process, from a patient’s referral to the delivery of the finished device.

The new funding will help Hike expand into other areas of orthotics, prosthetics, and medical equipment. The company also plans to hire more people in engineering, sales, and manufacturing.

15 Machines, CHF 22M

Exentis has landed two major equipment deals in Asia within days. The Swiss company first announced that a new Asian customer had signed a framework agreement covering 15 Exentis production systems valued at about CHF 22 million ($27.2 million). The customer plans to use the systems for high-volume production of consumer electronics components.

Exentis has now announced a second framework agreement with another new Asian customer. This deal covers eight production systems worth about CHF 11 million ($13.6 million). These machines will also be used for mass production of consumer electronics components. Together, the two agreements cover 23 production systems worth about CHF 33 million.

Exentis has developed what it calls Additive Screen Printing. The process builds parts by depositing material through screens in layers and is designed for high-volume industrial production. The company also has a broader business model around the machines. It sells production systems, services, and materials and offers technology licenses.

Additive screen printing in action. Image courtesy of Exentis.

Nearly $50M Behind Math Magic’s 3D AI

Another large amount of capital is moving into a much newer part of the 3D market. Beijing-based Math Magic announced it had closed a Series A+ round. The company did not disclose the size of that round itself but said it has raised “nearly $50 million” across two funding rounds over the past six months.

Both rounds were led by BAI Capital and HyT Capital. V Fund participated alongside existing investors including HSG, IDG Capital, Long-Z Investments, Crystal Stream and Jinqiu Capital.

Math Magic is primarily an AI 3D company, so its connection to AM is not as direct as Hike or Exentis. But its Hi3D platform turns images and other inputs into digital 3D models. What’s more, Math Magic is also trying to connect those digital models with physical manufacturing.

A 3D model generated with Hi3D V3.0, showing detailed geometry and surface features. Image courtesy of Hi3D.

Its Builda platform takes the idea a step further by turning AI-generated 3D designs into real products. For example, a user can upload a photo, have AI turn it into a 3D figurine, and order the finished figurine for delivery.

The new capital will go toward Math Magic’s AI 3D technology and product development. What’s quite interesting for the 3D printing industry is that the company also says it will invest in the production and delivery operations behind its “generation-to-delivery” model.

Hi3D V3.0 can generate complex 3D assets with detailed geometry and textures. Image courtesy of Hi3D.

Titanium Powder Orders Start Adding Up

PyroGenesis also picked up several new orders for its titanium powder in late August. The Montreal-based company produces Ti64 powder using its NexGen plasma atomization process.

Plasma atomization process for metal 3D printing powder. Image courtesy of PyroGenesis.

On August 20, PyroGenesis announced an order from a large U.S. applied research facility supported by the Department of Defense and NASA. The powder will be used with electron beam melting (EBM) for research into critical materials. Six days later, the same customer placed a second order. The company said the customer has indicated that more orders could follow.

PyroGenesis also announced a separate order on August 24 from an unnamed U.S. AM equipment maker. That customer had previously tested the company’s powder samples and is now buying coarse Ti64 powder for directed energy deposition (DED).

The company did not disclose the value or size of these orders, so it is too early to know how much they will contribute to its AM business. Still, the repeat order and the move from sample testing to a commercial purchase give PyroGenesis something important to watch: customers are starting to come back for more powder.

While the present post won’t reach you in time for you to act on the information, the US Army wants three more expeditionary AM systems, all for various polymer materials; proposals were due yesterday, August 31. Anyhow, the call for submissions was only issued on August 24, so the Army presumably had the intended recipients in mind prior to the call’s issuance. In that vein, the notice points out that Geofabrica, based in Michigan, is an incumbent with experience relevant to the project, so that might be who gets the contract.

Moreover, I think there are takeaways far more interesting than a potentially missed opportunity for a single contract. Above all, no matter how many expeditionary AM systems the US military acquires, from no matter how many vendors, the Pentagon seems to always want more. One reason for this, of course, is that there are as many different possibilities for expeditionary AM systems as there are AM processes that can be containerized or otherwise deployed in rugged environments.

Image courtesy of Geofabrica

However, this doesn’t mean that every individual need that the US military has for an expeditionary AM capability is already being fulfilled by a single incumbent that is too entrenched to be challenged by a competitor. That is, for any given process, there are multiple vendors working to address the Pentagon’s needs. This is the most interesting angle: there seems to be some level of genuine competition going on in US military procurement. When is the last time when that happened for a sustained period of time?

The specific agency that called for proposals, by the way, is the US Army Aviation and Missile Command (AMCOM), which plans to deploy a system at each of three locations: Fort Campbell in Kentucky, Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and Fort Hood in Texas. The notice says the machines will be used for “low-demand, non-flight safety essential” parts whose lack of availability can nonetheless still lead to aircraft-on-ground (AOG) status. Drones are among the systems in AMCOM’s portfolio of responsibilities, and in this context, it’s relevant that Ft. Campbell, Ft. Bragg, and Ft. Hood are all critical to the US Army’s drone capabilities.

As I’ve frequently noted, it’s important to view what the military is attempting to do with expeditionary AM holistically, not just in terms of the goal of being able to produce a specific kind of part at the point-of-need. Thus, for instance, expeditionary AM systems are as significant in terms of their implications for training military personnel how to use 3D printers and other advanced manufacturing equipment, as they are in terms of enabling technologies for on-demand, localized parts production.

With that in mind, assuming as I am that the US military still hasn’t settled on a preferred expeditionary system for every process, ease-of-adoption will likely be among the most important considerations in determining who wins the race to deliver expeditionary 3D printing to Pentagon customers. And that’s indeed just one example of a variable, other than part quality and cost, that will factor into the decision-making process.

So the “strategic” demand signal is clear: make your AM process expeditionary-friendly. But the “tactical” demand signals, i.e. the demand signals expressing what each branch wants in an expeditionary 3D printer, are apparently still unsettled and should remain so for some time. In other words, if you didn’t get in on this specific call for submissions, there will almost certainly be plenty additional opportunities.

Featured image courtesy of US Army

But we are seeing a resurgence of 3D printing by Japan Inc. Japanese machine tool manufacturers persist, while TDK bought Fabric8Labs and Sodick bought Prima, which is now called Altform. Now we’re seeing Japanese firms move into 3D printing drones as well. Terra Drone is to deliver its Terra B1 for Japan’s Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA). Under the Interceptor Drone Early Acquisition Program, the drones are to be mass produced.

The firm says that,

“In the Middle East, low-cost attack unmanned aerial vehicles such as Shahed-type drones have been widely used, while defenders have often been forced to rely on expensive interceptor missiles. This has exposed challenges including the depletion of interceptor missiles and a growing imbalance in cost-effectiveness. In Ukraine, by contrast, the use of low-cost interceptor drones against Shahed-type and other attack UAVs has advanced rapidly and achieved high interception rates. Based on these operational lessons, Japan is also placing greater importance on using more cost-effective means to counter low-cost aerial threats.”

Terra Drone won out over 38 other firms, and the program is specifically aimed at low-cost, large-scale drone interception. Specifically, this drone is aimed at long-range loitering munitions and Shaheds. The Japanese government is really stepping on the gas too, going from the initial demo to mass production in three months. Many of these crafts can be operated in concert, and testing also included recovery, integration, maneuverability, range, and speed. In addition to producing the drone, the company wants to further localize its supply chain by producing batteries and controls locally. The drones will then be integrated into vehicles and facilities.

Terra Drone is actively engaged in Ukraine and produces drones there locally as well. The firm has acquired and integrated a few local subsidiaries, and its A1 model has been successfully intercepting Shaheds since last year. This involvement in Ukraine is sure to give the company a well-defined edge over competitors who lack exposure to that fast-evolving conflict. The A1 has “a maximum speed of about 300 kilometers per hour, an operational range of up to 32 kilometers and an endurance of approximately 15 minutes,” and costs around $2,500 to $3,000.

What is also remarkable is that Terra Drone is no svelte startup; it’s a listed 650-employee firm that’s over a decade old. Far from becoming more entrenched or downplaying Ukrainian drone innovation, it engaged with Ukrainian firms, traveled to Ukraine to learn, and is now reaping the rewards of its forward-thinking, daring actions. It could be good for Japan if the 38 losing firms do the same. Indeed, every nation should do the same. Ukraine is where the future of warfare is being invented every single day. Cost-effective Ukrainian weapons are innovative, up-to-date, lean, and developed quickly. Rather than shiny White Elephants, Ukrainian weapons are effective and cost-effective. Every nation needs to work on drone defense and offense. The reality is that a lot of military defenses are completely useless, and an utter near-total revolution has taken place in warfare. And with this move, Japan is sweeping ahead and catching up. Excellent stuff.

For the six months ended June 30, 6K reported revenue of $13.3 million, up 73% from $7.7 million a year earlier. Its net loss narrowed to $6.8 million from $11.6 million. The company reported a gross loss of just $68,618, putting its gross margin close to break-even, compared with about negative 19% in the first half of 2025.

6Ks headquarters in Massachusetts. Image courtesy of 3DPrint.com/Vanesa Listek.

Metal Powders Drive Growth

6K Additive has two main businesses, Powder and Alloy. The Powder business makes metal powders for additive manufacturing and other advanced manufacturing applications. The Alloy business takes reclaimed materials and processes them into higher-grade metals used mainly in industries including aerospace and automotive.

Powder generated $9 million in H1, up 77% from $5.1 million a year earlier. Alloy revenue rose 66% to $4.2 million. That means roughly two-thirds of 6K’s first-half revenue came from Powder, which the company calls its main growth driver.

More than 90% of Powder sales came from repeat orders, and Powder backlog increased from $7 million in Q1 to $10.3 million in Q2. The company also reported growing use of its powders in serial production applications. That suggests at least some customers are moving beyond qualification and into recurring production demand.

That is important in metal AM, where materials can undergo lengthy qualification processes before customers begin buying them regularly. The repeat orders and growing use in serial production suggest that at least some 6K customers are moving beyond qualification and into recurring production demand.

“The key here is we are converting pipeline opportunity to actual orders,” said CEO Frank Roberts. “We are growing the backlog now over $10 million on the powder side of the business.”

Titanium, Nickel and Refractory Metals Grow

Several metals used in aerospace and defense AM saw strong growth in the second quarter. Titanium powder revenue rose 67% from the first quarter and nearly tripled from a year earlier, reaching $1.9 million. Nickel powder revenue rose to $1.5 million from $600,000 a year earlier. Demand for refractory metal powders, including tungsten, niobium, and tantalum alloys, jumped almost 500% from the first quarter as more customer programs moved forward.

These metals are important to the markets 6K serves. Titanium and nickel alloys are widely used in aerospace and defense AM, while refractory metals such as tungsten and niobium can handle the extreme heat found in propulsion and hypersonic systems.

6K produces these powders partly from recycled metal and scrap using its UniMelt process. This approach is also showing up in its customer agreements. Earlier this year, Siemens Energy signed a long-term agreement to send used nickel alloy powder from its AM operations to 6K for recycling into new powder.

6Ks UniMelt. Image courtesy of 3DPrint.com/Vanesa Listek.

Building Five Times More Powder Capacity

The company is expanding its Burgettstown, Pennsylvania, campus to meet growing demand. 6K plans to increase total production capacity from about 1,600 metric tons to more than 6,000 metric tons a year. Powder capacity is expected to grow fivefold, from about 200 to 1,000 metric tons a year.

Construction began in March. The expansion includes new buildings and equipment to produce titanium, nickel, stainless steel, and refractory metal powders. 6K said major construction contracts have been awarded and key equipment has been ordered. The expansion remains on schedule, with initial production expected by the end of 2026.

Spending will pick up in the second half of the year. 6K spent $1.4 million on the expansion in H1 and expects about $10 million in capital spending in H2 as construction and equipment payments increase.

The U.S. government is helping finance part of that growth. 6K’s expansion is supported by a $23.4 million Defense Production Act Title III grant. Management said in August that about $13.7 million of that support remained available.

Meanwhile, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM) approved a $27.4 million loan for the expansion. Unlike the DPA support, the EXIM financing is a loan, not a grant. At the end of June, 6K was still finalizing the loan documentation.

6K is also working directly with the Defense Logistics Agency on recovering strategic metals from military scrap. An award announced in April initially totaled $1.95 million and covered the conversion of end-of-life nickel, titanium, tungsten, and C-103 niobium alloy parts into higher-value metal powders. The work is aimed at reducing reliance on foreign sources of strategic metals.

Battery cell testing at 6K headquarters in Massachusetts. Image courtesy of 3DPrint.com/Vanesa Listek.

6K is growing, but it is still losing money and using cash. The company used $6.3 million in operating activities during H1, while cash fell from $29.5 million at the end of 2025 to $22.1 million in June. Management said its cash, remaining government support, and approved EXIM loan should be enough to fund the expansion without another capital raise.

The next step is turning that growth into profits. 6K is building five times more powder capacity, with initial production from the expansion expected by the end of 2026. The company is betting that demand from aerospace, defense, and other customers will continue to grow.

For the latest development on 8/31/26, please see an update at the end of this article.

Formlabs is doing a management shuffle, pointing the firm even more surely towards an IPO or other exit event. For one, I just noticed that the company has a Head of Investor Relations which is a totally public company thing to do, and something that startups and other firms don’t have. Now the company is doing more shuffling, and has added Dan Riccio as a strategic advisor. This will be very helpful since he was the former Mechanical Engineering Manager at Compaq, Director of Product Design at Apple, and SVP Hardware Engineering and VP Engineering at Apple as well. His vast experience in hardware, design, and consumer electronics should be a real asset to the firm.

Natan Liner is leaving the firm and no longer Chairman of the Board, but an advisor. This is probably a question of bringing on more outside board members. Natan was instrumental in the early days of Formlabs and also founded successful operations firm Tulip. His energy and wisdom will be missed I think. Rob Willet, the experienced Cognex executive, will remain on the board and is investing more in the firm. Instead of Natan, CEO Max Lobovsky is now Chairman of the Board. Meanwhile, Dávid Lakatos, a real force at the firm in the scaling stage, has become President and a member of the Board of Directors. Board member and former Amazon exec Nadia Shouraboura will become Lead Director.

Generally not a week goes by before someone tells me that either Formlabs will sell to Bambu or that the firm will go public in China or the US. The general feeling is that the company will eminently go public. An IPO in China seems logical since valuations are higher there. But, the global economy is in turmoil, and the Chinese economy is in effect collapsing. So the firm will either have to be very fast or very patient. I’m betting on the former.

Stereolithography 3D Printing: From the 1980s to Now.

Lobovsky said,

“Dan spent a career building some of the most beloved hardware products in the world, at an enormous scale, and he did it by obsessing over details most executives don’t care about- As we scale Formlabs into the next generation of manufacturing hardware, learning from Dan is going to make our team stronger and our products better. We’re thrilled to have him as an advisor and as an investor in what we’re building.”

Having worked on the iPad, Mac, and iPhone, there are few who know so much about managing big engineering teams, socializing technology, and designing for use by the many. Riccio is sure to be a asset, and the firm says he “will advise Formlabs’ leadership team on product development, design rigor, and operational scaling as the company expands its footprint in industrial and professional 3D printing.”

Riccio stated,

“Formlabs has quietly built one of the most complete hardware, software, and materials platforms I’ve seen outside of a handful of the world’s best consumer companies. The attention to detail in how these systems are engineered, and the ambition to make industrial-grade manufacturing accessible, is exactly the kind of problem I want to spend my time on. I’m excited to invest in that vision and to work with the team as they build it out.”

About Liner leaving the firm and the elevation of Lakatos, Lobovsky stated,

“Natan joined me in founding this company, betting on the idea and betting on me before almost anyone else. He has contributed in many ways as a cofounder and board member and will continue to contribute as an advisor. Dávid joined just a couple of years into the history of the company, and I think of him as a co-founder as well. He has been instrumental in building almost every aspect of the company across almost every product and development of our long-term strategy.”

Drone made with Formlabs Tough 2000 V2 resin.

The company seems intent on engaging in some kind of exit event soon. I’m still not sure what I would do if I were them. The most obvious option is a listing in China, but they could also merge with a Chinese vendor for example, or sell themselves to someone. It looks like they’re preparing for the long haul though. Along with the successful Creality IPO and continued growth of Bambu, Formlabs’ health is a key bellwether for the industry. We’ll be back on track in the eyes of many if Formlabs goes public successfully. It seems that they will not lack the experience in their teams to do so.

Update 8/31/26 by Sarah Saunders

In a recent LinkedIn post, Shen Wang, CFA, Chief Investment Officer at the Chinese private equity and venture capital firm Concord AM Capital, announced that Concord is “now officially a strategic investor” in Formlabs. Founded in 2016, Concord invests in intelligent additive manufacturing, specializing in “AM+AI” digital intelligence manufacturing applications and scenarios; other notable AM names in its portfolio include FibreSeek and UnionTech. The firm is headquartered in Shanghai, with an additional branch in Suzhou.

In the post, Wang mentioned that Concord will work closely with Hanfeng Wu, Head of China Operations for Formlabs, to help it expand business in the APAC region, and specifically China. With Concord signing on as a Formlabs investor, this lends even more credence to the idea that the company is preparing an exit event, whether an IPO, merger, or outright sale. I’m no expert, but my money is on Formlabs going public in China.

Images courtesy of Formlabs