Shapeways just raised $30 million to vastly expand their remote 3D printing capabilities Their idea is simple. Users anywhere design a 3D object, upload the plans to them, they make it, then ship it to them. Call it cloud computing for 3D printing. No worries about buying and maintaining equipment and infrastructure. They handle all that, freeing the user to spend time creating and innovating. This is exactly how cloud computing works.
The $30 million investment was led by Silicon Valley powerhouse VCs Andreessen Horowitz.
When we visited Shapeways “Factory of the Future”, we were struck by the absolutely cavernous factory floor – most of which was empty. At the time the question we pondered was, “who’s going to pay for all this space?”
The answer is now clear. Expect another 50 large scale 3D printers to appear in that space soon.