40 - How Acquisition and Investment Activity Affects AM Users and Adopters

Additive manufacturing is a dynamic space for various reasons: The technology is advancing and application possibilities are still being developed, and as a direct consequence, the landscape of AM companies is subject to change due to investor moves; mergers and acquisitions; and startups emerging from “stealth mode.” On this podcast, and in related reporting for Additive Manufacturing Media, we serve manufacturers by covering AM technology and applications — the corporate and financial moves are not the focus. And yet, one realm affects the other. The company moves shape what we cover and affect the choices of manufacturers as they aim to proceed with the technology. In this episode of AM Radio, Peter Zelinski and Stephanie Hendrixson talk about this. They discuss how the corporate and financial developments among AM companies play out for AM users, and where the dynamism of the additive space is likely to lead in the future.

This episode of AM Radio is brought to you by Formnext Forum: Austin.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Stratasys and Desktop Metal
• Other recent company moves: Ultimaker and Makerbot; Markforged and Digital Metal; Shapeways and Linear AMS; Nexa3D and Addifab
• AM provider Zeda opening new facility
• Tangible Solutions built its process on machines from Concept Laser. Concept has since been acquired and Tangible has been acquired.
• RP+M succeeding with FDM, its initial process
• Facilities with space to add more additive capacity: GKN in Michigan; Wabtec in Pittsburgh; Collins Aerospace in Charlotte
• HP binder jetting, and HP Corvallis legacy developments such as first laptop
• Fortify applications to mold tooling and radio frequency devices
• Evolve STEP process
• Stratasys and Origin work together, then join
• Dayton Horvath on AM investor shift toward applications

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