Wematter announced an expansion to their production facilities.
Wematter is a Swedish 3D print startup that manufactures an interesting SLS-style 3D printer for industrial use. Their “Gravity” system is quite interesting.
Their hardware is tightly tuned to their materials through software. Their “Deep Space” software system is able to prepare print jobs that result in extremely strong parts, sufficient to survive stressful conditions, as shown in this amazing video:
Earlier this year they announced the “Atmosphere” system to greatly increase print quality. This system regulates the build chamber conditions in a way that other SLS units do not.
They also announced an unusual post processing accessory device, the Density Gen II, that uses a unique combination of water and air jets to very quickly clean larger quantities of 3D printed SLS parts.
https://www.fabbaloo.com/news/wematter-announces-unusual-sls-post-processing-device
And most importantly, this year they received a very significant investment of almost US$2M. At the time of the investment it was unclear what, exactly, the company intended to do with this fresh cash.
Now we know a lot more.
Their announcement this month was of an expansion to their production facilities. They explain:
“To meet increased demand, the company is investing 5 million in its own production facility for faster deliveries to customers.”
(To be clear, I believe they are using SEK currency instead of USD in their announcement.)
They continue:
“The increasing demand for Wematter’s 3D printing systems, including the Gravity SLS 3D printer, has led the company to scale up and invest in its own production facility to ensure that it can complete timely deliveries to customers. The company’s investment in enhanced production includes strengthening its team with four new employees.”
Apparently the expansion “doubles” the physical size of their production facility, but also increases their capacity by an astounding “1,500%”. That is a significant upgrade.
There’s only one reason why a company would scale in this way: they expect to make a great many sales. Evidently their offer of high quality SLS 3D print capability is being accepted by customers contacted by their expanding sales and marketing team.
There’s something else here. Wematter CEO Robert Knoll said:
“This is the first step in laying a solid foundation to start looking at different arrangements with contract manufacturers to reach the next milestone in our production plan.”
That is even more interesting. A “contract manufacturer” is a large-scale business that can produce huge quantities of a part or product on request, usually through a volume contract. While the new announcement appears to discuss an in-house manufacturing capability, their CEO seems to be looking even beyond that towards large-scale production at contract manufacturers.
This suggests the company plans on rapid growth and is making arrangements to do so.
It’s no wonder the company received additional investment earlier this year, particular from some original investors that upped their contributions.
Via Wematter
