Formlabs Announces the Completion of its Kickstarter Campaign
Somerville 3D-printing start-up completes shipping printers to backers of its nearly $3M crowdfunding round. Looks forward to new materials R&D and global customer support and fulfillment
SOMERVILLE, Mass., 3 Dec 2013 – Formlabs, the designers and manufacturers of the Form 1 3D Printer, announced the completion of the first phase of their Kickstarter campaign today. With that announcement, Formlabs has now shipped over 1,000 printers around the globe. Today, there are Form 1s from the USA to Poland to Hong Kong, as well as 30 other countries.
It has been an exciting journey. What began as an idea and and a break-out Kickstarter campaign has become an all-star team and a growing community. Formlabs was publicly launched in September of 2012, in a landmark crowd-funding campaign that raised close to $3 million USD, making it the most highly-funded technology project on the Kickstarter platform. More than 2000 people joined the campaign, driving the company from a 3-person MIT Media Lab spin-off to a fast-growing 35-person team.
“This is the end of a phase,” said Formlabs co-founder, Maxim Lobovsky. “We’re thankful for the incredible opportunity that our Kickstarter backers gave us, and with the amazing team we’ve built, we’re looking forward to continue to develop great tools.” After closing a $19M funding found in October of this year, the company has ambitious plans for 2014.
Natan Linder, a Formlabs co-founder, added, “The Kickstarter community is our rock. They gave us our start, and we’re going to continue to support them. It’s great to be at this stage, now, and we’ll be expanding our team to keep doing what they set us out to do. We’re building machines to change the world.”
Realizing that dream will take shape in many ways, from an expanding R&D division that will include a focus on new materials and software features, as well as growing support teams, to give close attention and assistance to customers worldwide.
EuroMold
This week, Formlabs is traveling to EuroMold, in Frankfurt, Germany, to display the Form 1 3D Printer as well as give visitors a sneak-peek at some of the new resins under development. At EuroMold, Formlabs will give manufacturers, engineers, and designers, a chance to see the Form 1 in action.