Identifying the Giants of 3D Printing Industry as of December 17, 2023

Once again we take a look at the valuations of the major 3D printing companies over the past week.

Publicly traded companies are required to post their financial reports, as well as appear on stock markets. From there we can calculate the total value of their company by multiplying the current stock price by the number of outstanding shares. This number is the market capitalization, and represents the current valuation of the company.

It’s a great number of compare companies, as the market capitalization can be leveraged to provide more capabilities for the company. Shares could, for example, be used as collateral for a loan. That and similar maneuvers could generate cash with which the company might undertake new projects.

“Market cap”, otherwise known, is of high significance.

It may seem unimportant to keep a weekly check on these companies, as their value is accounted for only when stocks are bought and sold. Nevertheless, there are instances when events cause a company’s value to fluctuate, and we record these occurrences in this weekly article.

Keep in mind that this list doesn’t encompass all the significant 3D printing companies. There are companies in the 3D printing industry that are not publicly traded, so we can’t definitively ascertain their actual scale, for instance, EOS. Similarly, others like HP or Siemens possess vast 3D printing departments but are part of larger organizations, making it challenging to determine the exact size of their 3D printing endeavors.

Let’s examine the 3D printing companies listed for this week.

3D Printing Leaderboard

This week saw huge gains over the board. The markets in general were up two to three percent, and as usual, our 3D print leaderboard exaggerated the overall trends with a six point jump in value.

At the top of the leaderboard for a couple of week now remains Xometry. This week their valuation leapt upwards yet another 22%, a very significant gain. Their addition of US$242M in value exceeds the value of all companies in position eight or lower.

There’s been no official announcement to explain the trend, but there have been several instances of increased usage of the company’s platform. Moreover, their board chair is new, appointed earlier this month, but as the individual isn’t new to the company, it’s unlikely this would impact the valuation.

The way I see it, investors are appreciating the potential of manufacturing networks, with Xometry and Protolabs leading the pack. Despite operating in the same domain, Shapeways is currently ranked 16th. Perhaps, it’s because investors still perceive Shapeways as a consumer-focused brand, leading them to gravitate towards other brands.

A standout performer has been Titomic which has seen a 65% increase in value this week. Coupled with the 88% increase from two weeks ago, it’s made massive strides. So much so, that the Australian Stock Exchange sought an explanation from ‘TTT’ after the sudden surge, to which they responded by confirming that they were unaware of any reasons for the surge.

However, the value has spiked again, after a modest increase last week. What can explain this behavior of Titomic? This week didn’t witness any news or another round of inquiries, instead, the company issued 500,000 new shares (from almost 900M total shares, accounting for less than 1%). The question that arises is why would a company’s stock value increase by 65% when the company’s standing remains the same? Logically, the introduction of more shares should lead to a minor dip in the stock price.

I can’t say what’s causing this sudden rise in Titomic’s value, but clearly something quite interesting is taking place. Whatever it is, it might be contagious: another Australian metal 3D company, AML3D, also boosted significantly this week.

Finally, let’s look at the two big hitters that have been battling all year: Stratasys and 3D Systems. As of this week, Stratasys remains ahead, but only by an ever-slimming margin. This week the two were separated by only US$18M in value; 3D Systems is catching up.

Upcoming Changes

BigRep announced plans to go public via the SPAC approach, so we will soon see them appear on the leaderboard.

One company I’ve been keeping an eye on is ICON, a construction 3D printer manufacturer located in Texas. This private company has managed to raise almost half a billion dollars in investment. It stands to reason they might consider going public in the future, which could potentially place them at the top of our leaderboard.

It would make sense for another company, VulcanForms, to go public as well. They deliver their manufacturing services via an advanced metal 3D printing process. Currently, they are privately valued at over US$1B, a figure that could rise significantly should they decide to go public.

If you hear of other 3D print companies going public that are worthy of a spot on our leaderboard, please get in touch!

Others In The Industry

While we’re keenly observing the activities of public companies, we mustn’t overlook the existence of numerous private companies that are conspicuously missing from all stock exchanges. It’s possibly that these privately-owned enterprises hold substantial value, but without public trading insights, it’s challenging to accurately determine their worth. The larger private enterprises are suspected to include companies like EOS, Carbon, and Formlabs.

Maybe at some point in the future, these companies may feature on our list of key market players.

Related Companies

Last but not least, there’s no shortage of companies heavily invested in the 3D printing industry. However, 3D printing represents only a small fraction of their overall business operations. Consequently, it’s not appropriate to include them in the above lists since their exact involvement in 3D printing is unclear.

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