Charles R. Goulding and Preeti Sulibhavi look at the recent appearance of Formlabs on a major media outlet.
Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business news recently interviewed Max Lobovsky, the CEO of Formlabs. Formlabs, located in Somerville, Massachusetts was started in 2011 by three Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) grads. The company is famous for originally raising US$3M in Kickstarter capital, the largest crowdfunding project ever at that time.
Formlabs manufactures 3D printers, develops associated software, and has sold more than 100,000 printers and 100 million parts. Lobovsky said that COVID-19 showcases what the 3D printing industry can do. He said that pre-pandemic, no one at Formlabs knew what a test swab was but they made 20 million of them.
Maria emphasized the potential for the 3D printing industry to address supply chain challenges.
Formlabs
Whether a company is looking for solutions in engineering, manufacturing, education, medical technology, entertainment, jewelry or audio, Formlabs definitely delivers.
Formlabs 3D printers allow engineers to rapidly produce high quality prototypes in-house while exploring advanced concepts including an iterative range of designs, all with low risk.
The lighting industry is a major utilizer of 3D printing and the picture above illustrates an LED light bar.
The medical and healthcare industry is one of the largest beneficiaries of 3D printing technology. Formlabs enables more accurate and flexible product development all the way from medical device product design to production. In fact, Formlabs has jumped into action during Covid to help health systems and government agencies design, prototype, and produce to help address supply chain issues and other industry needs.
The Research & Development Tax Credit
The now permanent Research and Development (R&D) Tax Credit is available for companies developing new or improved products, processes and/or software.
3D printing can help boost a company’s R&D Tax Credits. Wages for technical employees creating, testing, and revising 3D printed prototypes can be included as a percentage of eligible time spent for the R&D Tax Credit. Similarly, when used as a method of improving a process, time spent integrating 3D printing hardware and software counts as an eligible activity. Lastly, when used for modeling and preproduction, the costs of filaments consumed during the development process may also be recovered.
Whether it is used for creating and testing prototypes or for final production, 3D printing is a great indicator that R&D Credit eligible activities are taking place. Companies implementing this technology at any point should consider taking advantage of R&D Tax Credits.
Conclusion
Maria Bartiromo’s program has a wide audience and her coverage should help make viewers aware of the potential of Formlabs and the entire 3D printing industry.
