Times have certainly changed: Shapeways just acquired Thangs.
Shapeways is actually “Shapeways 2.0”, having been resurrected from the ashes of the bankrupt “Shapeways 1.0”. Some weeks earlier, a group of investors — who just happened to be the same folks that started Shapeways 1.0 years ago — acquired the assets of Shapeways 1.0 and relaunched it all as “Shapeways 2.0“.
While the investors were able to acquire the assets of Shapeways 1.0, they were not able to recover the Shapeways Marketplace, a service that permitted designers to set up their own online stores. Somehow in the confusion of bankruptcy, Shapeways 1.0 management lost the Marketplace.
This left Shapeways 2.0 without a marketplace for designers, which is not the best option for a company that needs to print as many 3D models as possible. Previously, the company said they were investigating ways of recovering that functionality.
Meanwhile, Thangs is a robust 3D model repository that’s well-regarded in the industry. Launched quite a few years ago, Thangs now boasts an enormous number of 3D models and participating designers. The site offers both free and paid downloads and has quite a sophisticated system for content discovery.
Most notably is Thang’s search function, which goes well beyond mere keyword searching and even allows users to upload 3D models to search for similar geometries.
The announcement today said that Shapeways has acquired a “majority stake” in Thangs from original owner Physna. Physna produces systems to organize and manage collections of 3D models, and Thangs seems to be a sideline business for them. It appears that Physna will remain a minority owner of Thangs, which will now operate as a subsidiary of Shapeways named “Thangs 3D”.
This acquisition solves the riddle of the missing Marketplace in Shapeways 2.0, and goes well beyond the original Marketplace functionality.
Shapeways CEO Marleen Vogelaar explained:
“The team behind Thangs really loves their creators and community — and they take good care of them: which is exactly in line with the original spirit of Shapeways. Equally importantly, their 3D search technology powered by Physna protects the IP of their creators, which is incredibly important to me and the rest of the management team. We will be working now to create the ‘Print to Shapeways’ button within Thangs and developing shops. We will be retaining the spirit of Thangs, which will become Thangs 3D Inc., a subsidiary, while creating a new home for Shapeways community members’ 3D files and businesses.”
And that’s the key to this deal: the presence of the “Print” button will drive a staggering amount of work towards Shapeways, and the expected revenue from that activity surely was a major element in their business plan.
For Thangs, the acquisition is also a good thing: the Shapeways name will attract more attention, and the ability to print anything using Shapeways’ twelve different 3D printing processes will be of great interest to anyone using Thangs.
Currently, Thangs seems to have around 1.2M 3D models in their collection, but we may see a sharp rise as a result of the acquisition.
Terms of the deal were not announced.
