The Leading Giant in 3D Printing as of January 7, 2024

Which 3D print company is the biggest this week?

We are once again examining the valuations of the principal 3D printing companies over the previous week.

Publicly listed companies are expected to publish their financial reports and be present on stock exchanges. From this information, we can determine the entire value of their company by multiplying the prevailing stock price by the number of outstanding shares. This figure is known as the market capitalization and signifies the present worth of the company.

Market capitalization is an excellent measure for comparing companies, as it can be used to enhance the company’s capabilities. Shares, for instance, could be used as collateral for securing a loan. Such and similar actions could generate capital, which the company could then apply to new initiatives.

Simply put, “market cap”, or market capitalization, holds significant importance.

It might seem unnecessary to keep an eye on these companies on a weekly basis since their value is only actualized when stocks are sold. However, occasional events can cause a company’s value to fluctuate. It’s these changes that this weekly entry aims to monitor.

Keep in mind, this list doesn’t encompass all major 3D printing companies. A number of 3D printing companies are not publicly traded, preventing us from determining their true size, like EOS for instance. Others, such as HP or Siemens, are part of larger corporations and the specific scale of their 3D printing operations remains unclear.

Now, let’s examine the 3D printing companies included in this week’s list.

3D Printing Leaderboard

This week saw significant drops in valuation for almost every company on the leaderboard. The markets overall fell 2-4 percent, and as usual the tech-heavy 3D print companies suffered more, with the leaderboard total falling 7.5%.

Most companies fell approximately that percent, but there were some interesting deviations.

Stratasys experienced a minimal 2.5% decrease, which might have been due to heightened scrutiny as a result of Nano Dimension’s most recent acquisition attempt. Their latest offer is far from stellar and is noticeably weaker than previous proposals; thus, it has a low chance of success. Nonetheless, the mere existence of the bid may have instilled confidence in investors, preventing the stock from plummeting extensively.

The slight decline allowed Stratasys to secure the second spot on the leaderboard, thereby demoting Protolabs to third place. 3D Systems, a prior, but not current contender for Stratasys, suffered a dramatic 12% decrease this week. Meanwhile, Nano Dimension’s stocks declined by approximately 4%.

Desktop Metal’s shares endured an 18% setback over the week. Although no official news could definitively explain this shift, it might be attributable to growing concerns amongst investors over the company’s future, especially after the annulment of its merger with Stratasys and the lack of a subsequent strategic plan.

Shapeways also had a notorious week, with their stocks plummeting 17% and bringing their overall market capitalization down to roughly US$13M. Reflecting a staggering erosion of value, considering that they stood at US$564M on the leaderboard as of October 2021, resulting in a 98% depreciation. This drastic depreciation could likely be a major reason for the loss of faith in 3D printing firms amongst venture capitalists. Given its current undervaluation, Shapeways could be an easy target for acquisition by multiple other firms, but this seems improbable. The inability of Shapeways to keep pace with Protolabs or Xometry, which are both operating in similar sectors but enjoy much higher valuation, remains perplexing.

Finally, we have Titomic. The Australian metal 3D printing company ROSE ten percent this week, bucking the trend. This company has been subject to seemingly fantastic rises in value, week after week. The trend continues this week, and it’s unclear what’s going on.

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 started to watch is ICON, the Texas-based construction 3D printer manufacturer. This privately-held company has been raising a significant amount of investment to the tune of almost half a billion dollars. At that level it is likely they will be discussing a transition to public markets at some point, which would certainly place them at or near the top of our leaderboard.

Another business that appears a logical candidate to become public is VulcanForms, a manufacturing service using a ground-breaking metal 3D printing process. Currently, they are privately valued at over US$1B, and the value could surge even higher when they go public.

If you know of any other 3D printing companies that are public and should be included in our leaderboard, do let us know!

Others In The Industry

As we’ve been tracking the public companies, it’s integral not to overlook some private companies that are absent from any stock exchange. These privately-held firms likely carry considerable value; the only hitch is that we aren’t privy to their precise value at every single moment. The projected larger companies encompass EOS, Carbon, and Formlabs.

Perhaps someday some of them will appear on our major players list.

Related Companies

Finally, there are a number of companies that are deeply engaged in the 3D print industry, but that activity is only a small slice of their operations. Thus it’s not fair to place them on the lists above because we don’t really know where their true 3D print activities lie.

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