While attending EuroMold the other week we happened to listen in to a media talk by Stratasys CEO David Reis, who spoke about Stratasys’ progress over the past year. But one part of his talk was more intriguing than the rest.
Reis explained that Stratasys had issued shares several months ago to raise funds. This, we knew already. The public offer closed on September 18th and apparently raised some USD$463M. That’s a lot of money, and we assumed it was to fund the MakerBot acquisition.
Apparently this is not the case. Reis explained that the offer was to raise money to “fund future acquisitions”.
Now the question is, who, exactly are they intending to purchase? Our guess is that Stratasys will pursue a company able to produce metal 3D printers, as that is:
- A capability not currently in Stratasys’ arsenal
- Is a capability of their competitor, 3D Systems, who recently acquired Phenix Systems
In fact, 3D Systems made a big splash showing off their five-ton metal 3D printer at EuroMold (image above). Stratasys doesn’t have anything like it.
Yet.
