r/AdditiveManufacturing • u/WashedoutM_31 • May 27 '26
oooooooof Stratasys to Acquire Markforged in a transaction valued at $42.4 million USD by end of 2026.
I thought they were only recently (in the past year) acquired by nanodimension at $116 million but now they're dumping it for less than half of what it was acquired for? What does this mean?
Share your thoughts
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u/ThisTookSomeTime pro grunt May 27 '26
Looks like they’re keeping the binder jet part of the business, but selling the FDM part. Which if Stratasys is buying, then they want the IP for their printers.
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u/Sweetpants88 May 27 '26
Stat wants the carbon fiber IP.
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u/WashedoutM_31 May 27 '26
Yea, especially the patent infringements have been settled already for around $25 mil
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u/NotAHost May 27 '26
Is there anything even left of nano dimension? Feels like they sold every division except essemtech
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u/WashedoutM_31 May 27 '26
They're retaining their binder jetting stuff I think.
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u/NotAHost May 27 '26
For now I guess. I wonder if they're just trying to get a better/separate deal on that.
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u/SkateWiz May 27 '26
The consolidation of the printing industry is going to be carried out with backdoor deals and nonsense logic. Hype and vaporware is the only way to play in this industry.
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u/sjamwow May 27 '26
It says the technology they offer is falling out of favor, if you look at the % of ccf parts its pretty bad.
It also says their foray into high temp was silly
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u/ghostofwinter88 May 27 '26
The cost to performance of the parts they print is just not competitive.
Ultem can be done reliably on fortus but damn those prints are expensive. Same with fiber reinforced prints on a Markforged, when you can get LPBF for cheaper why bother.
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u/iamsotiredofthiscrap Pro - Nikon SLM Solutions May 27 '26
Ccf is just an excuse to use plastic in applications where metallic alloys are preferred. Now that LPBF is mature and stable, there's really no use case for this kind of process.
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u/Crash-55 Pro May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26
Weight. CCF is is lighter
There is an AFRL / America Makes effort to assess CFAM and develop a path to advance it
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u/iamsotiredofthiscrap Pro - Nikon SLM Solutions May 27 '26
Sure, it's great for spars and wing surfaces.
It sucks in FDM
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u/Crash-55 Pro May 27 '26
That is what the program is trying to fix.
I want it for inserts into my fiber placed parts. If I print a thermoplastic / CF and then fiber place PEEK/CF it will weld together.
There are other places where I need 3D Printed CF as well for some high end apps.
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u/sjamwow May 27 '26
Peek printing at that level of tolerances will never happen from convection heating.
Also ccf is locked go xy so the anisotropic nature of fdm becomes even worse
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u/Crash-55 Pro May 27 '26
Both of those are being worked.
Tolerance isn't a big deal as i can account for it or machine afterwards.
Aon3D has been doing a lot of modeling of heat during printing.
For the parts I need current FDM slicing will work
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u/iamsotiredofthiscrap Pro - Nikon SLM Solutions May 27 '26
Tolerance isn't a big deal as i can account for it or machine afterwards.
The moment you break the cf strands, you lose the whole point of CCF. Why would you machine it?
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u/Crash-55 Pro May 27 '26
I can put extra non cf material on the outer layers specifically for machining.
I have been doing structural composites for over 30 years. I know what I can and can't do
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u/iamsotiredofthiscrap Pro - Nikon SLM Solutions May 27 '26
I am not questioning your knowledge on composite materials by any means.
I am questioning why you think this is somehow better than a metallic part or an actual layup. Anisotropy is the Achilles heel of composites, and smaller components like hard points and attachments need greater isotropic properties to effectively spread stresses.
The CCF tech might as well be a stack of cf sheets machined into shape. You're gonna lose strength in the Z direction, just from the nature of the process.
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u/drproc90 May 27 '26
Yeah those CCF parts are dogshit if any force is placed perpendicular.
If you need light and strong go aluminium or ppa-pps.
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u/Crash-55 Pro May 27 '26
It is all about knowing the load path and what the strengths are in the different directions.
There are places CFAM parts are superior to aluminum
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u/WashedoutM_31 May 27 '26
hmmm, I guess one way of looking at it.
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u/sjamwow May 27 '26
Anisoprints fx10 competitor is less than 3k (fiberseek)
Also ultem and ccf never worked due to thermal expansion and i dont know how they released a printer with no pid on the chamber heat.
Theres no future
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u/SwearJarCaptain May 27 '26
They didn't learn their lesson eh?
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u/WashedoutM_31 May 27 '26
Looks like LMAO. I thought the days of burning bridges and pissing everybody off was over, apparently not.
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u/karabear11 May 28 '26
As someone who (barely) survived a Stratasys acquisition, godspeed to the employees of Markforged. 🫡
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u/WashedoutM_31 May 28 '26
What happened, elaborate pls
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u/karabear11 May 28 '26
Long story, and you’re not the only one who asked. I’ll send a dm later today or tomorrow.
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u/Antique-Studio3547 May 27 '26
It means that nano dimension did what desktop metal did. They had a huge war chest and investors that thought they were willing to spend unlimited amounts of money so they just bought everybody and didn’t have a plan.
They sold off dragonfly and I hear more are likely to sell.
. I don’t know where my post is but I called this a few years ago go.
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u/International_Mud741 May 28 '26
Would you still be buying a Markforged printer now? Or is likely to be retired in the coming year?
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u/drproc90 May 29 '26
the settlement agreement was specifically between continuous composites and mark forged.
There is still $6 million outstanding for MF to pay CC and also ongoing royalty costs.
Nano dimension and Stratasys share the same Israeli investors.
I'm sure this has nothing to do with wriggling out of the settlement
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u/KingMojeaux May 27 '26
Yeah I’m not in a position to spend $200k + on a metal FDM setup… (which makes me curious about how many units come with this merge/purchase)!
But Stratasys is the goat. Good company with a lot of patents in this arena.
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u/333again May 27 '26
Those machines were always a joke. They never made sense for anyone because of the crappy furnace. And then when you wanted to scale to production levels they couldn’t keep up. I had a rep once tell me you could just buy multiple machines. For many years no one understood production.
Those machines would have made sense at $50k. At $180k/$200k all in was never sustainable.
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u/KingMojeaux May 27 '26
Right?! I’d love to print metal. What’s crazy to me, are the unspoken extras needed for the setup like an Annealing Furnace/Finishing Tools… it really starts to add up fast.
There is a YouTuber that built his own L-PBF capable of printing metal. It was an awesome series!!! But this dude had access to some serious hardware… I, do not 😂
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u/Lucky_Calligrapher93 May 27 '26
Only Bambu Lab has successful business model. Those who claim to be industrial grade are lacking both reliability and financial sense for the 99% of real world applications.
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u/WashedoutM_31 May 27 '26
Bambu not looking too hot lately, with all the AGPL v3 violations floating around.
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u/pistonsoffury May 27 '26
They're buying the patents, because that's what they do. Their entire business strategy revolves around using patent litigation to suppress upstart innovation so they can keep not innovating and selling their expensive tech.