Elegoo has raised even more cash.
The Chinese company is one of the leading providers of desktop 3D printing equipment, along with Creality, Bambu Lab, Anycubic, and Prusa Research. Several of these companies have recently raised large investments for expansion.
Elegoo was one of them. Late last year, there were reports that they had received tens of millions of USD (equivalent in Chinese RMB) from several investors, notably including DJI, the drone manufacturer from which came Bambu Lab’s founders.
Now there is news that they’ve executed another investment round, a “B+” round, rumored to be in the US$70M range. This likely puts Elegoo in the US$100M investment range, in total. The latest raise included a number of Chinese investment firms, but apparently not DJI.
The massive amount of money being tossed around in these recent investments is reminiscent of the investor frenzy in industrial 3D printing from a few years ago. Then, companies like Desktop Metal received hundreds of millions, but later failed miserably, with investors basically losing most of their value.
Could this be an echo of that frenzy? Are these Chinese companies accepting investment money based on questionable premises as did the industrial 3D printer companies a few years ago?
Or are these companies better organized and more realistic than the industrial companies? This is a definite possibility, because these companies are actually making profits on their operations, unlike many of the industrial firms.
And what will they do with all this cash? One can hope they will use it to develop even more advanced 3D printers, and expand sales.
We won’t know how this will turn out, so it’s going to take a couple of years to see how the industry plays out.
Ironically, it is entirely possible that the investments could have been made with promises of these companies moving into the same industrial markets that the earlier companies failed to capture.
Via PanDaily
