3D Printing News Briefs: May 4, 2018

For all of you Star Wars fans out there, May the Fourth be with you today as we bring you the latest business and financial news in this week’s final edition of 3D Printing News Briefs. California laser company Coherent has acquired OR Laser in Germany, and regenerative medicine company CollPlant has completed the final closing of an investment agreement. Several major players in the 3D printing world – Materialise, Prodways, Stratasys, and 3D Systems – have released their financial results for the first quarter of 2018, while PyroGenesis has released the results from FY2017. Finally, the 3DCompare service has just launched its new Materials site.

Coherent Acquires German OR Laser

Since reaching an all-time high of nearly $330 in January 2018, Coherent’s stock price has nearly halved in value – despite the laser firm continuing to post solid-looking financial results.

Coherent, a laser company headquartered in California, has had some uncertainty as of late in its key application area of organic LED (OLED) display production. But despite this hiccup, and falling stock prices, it’s reported a 14% year-on-year rise in revenues for the latest financial quarter. There’s been increased demand in several end markets for high-power fiber lasers in metal cutting applications, and the company, according to CEO John Ambroseo, has seen “tremendous growth” in metal 3D printing. That’s why Coherent made the recent decision to enter the metal 3D printing market with its acquisition of German company O.R. Lasertechnologie (OR Laser), well-known for its flexible ORLAS CREATOR metal 3D printer.

Ambroseo said about the company’s acquisition, “Industry data shows that metal AM machine unit sales grew 80 per cent in 2017 versus 2016.

“Many of the existing tool providers in metal AM are providing process development services and encoding the parameters into their tools. While this may ensure reproducibility and quality, it creates a log-jam for innovation.”

CollPlant Completes Investment Agreement

CollPlant rhCollagen-based medical products.

Regenerative medicine company CollPlant, which uses its proprietary plant-based rhCollagen technology for tissue repair products, just announced that it has completed the third and final closing of its investment agreement with Alpha Capital Anstalt, and issued the company a pre-paid warrant to purchase up to 9,921,482 ordinary shares, represented by 198,430 American Depositary Shares (ADSs), as well as a warrant to purchase up to 49,607,407 ordinary shares represented by 992,149 ADSs. The exercise price NIS 36.14 per ADS ($10.07 per ADS), with gross proceeds equaling $1 million, and both warrants were offered up in a private placement.

“With this last phase of investment, we are concluding a series of rounds of financing over the past seven months in CollPlant totaling approximately $8 million. These rounds were participated in by Alpha and our largest shareholders,” said Yehiel Tal, CollPlant’s CFO. “The main use of proceeds of these funds were for the establishment of a new cGMP production facility in Israel, the investment in the development projects that we have with 3D bio-printing of tissues and organs, R&D, sales and marketing and working capital and general corporate purposes.”

Materialise Reports Increasing Revenues

Today, Materialise has announced its financial results for Q1 2018, which ended on March 31st. The company’s total revenue had an increase of 37.5% from the same period last year, thanks to continued strong performance in its Materialise Medical segment and recently acquired ACTech business. There was a 2,116 kEUR increase from 18,723 kEUR at the end of 2017 to 20,839 kEUR for its total deferred revenue from both maintenance contracts and annual software sales, while its net result was (183) kEUR, compared to (816) kEUR over the same period last year. For the rest of the fiscal year, management expects to report consolidate revenue between 180,000 – 185,000 kEUR, and Adjusted EBITDA between 22,000 – 25,000 kEUR.

“In the year’s opening quarter, we focused as planned on advancing the many initiatives and collaborations we have implemented in recent years to position Materialise at the heart of the additive manufacturing ecosystem,” said Materialise Executive Chairman Peter Leys. “Our efforts showed particular success in Materialise Medical, where we realized revenue growth of 20% and achieved a record EBITDA margin of 17%. Our recently acquired ACTech business also turned in an excellent performance and is strengthening our multi-faceted business model. We believe we are on track to meet our financial guidance for 2018.”

Prodways Releases Q1 2018 Results

Another company seeing an increase in Q1 2018 financial results is Prodways, which is reporting that revenue growth is up 81%, increasing from €7.4 million for the first quarter of 2017 to €13.5 million. This uptick is a reflection of sustained growth from the company’s Systems and Products divisions, and helped along due to contributions from Interson-Protac and AvenAo Industrie, both of which Prodways acquired last year. Prodways also noted a few important business successes in the quarterly period, including the first multiple sale to a leading dental laboratory of its ProMaker LD-10 printer and the Nexteam Group’s decision to install the first machine using Rapid Additive Forging (RAF) technology for large-scale titanium parts.

According to the company, “With the full-year consolidation of the acquisitions made in the second half of 2017 and the organic growth of business activities, Prodways Group is restating its ambition to exceed revenue of €50 million in 2018, representing growth of more than 43%. Considering the good figures of the first quarter, Prodways Group will specify its target on the occasion of half-year revenue publication. New acquisitions could reinforce this growth momentum. Prodways Group is reviewing transactions for both divisions and has the financial resources to match its ambitions.”

Stratasys Q1 2018 Revenues Down From 2017

Stratasys, which introduced several new products at RAPID 2018 last week, also released its financial results for Q1 2018, and revenue is down 6% from last year – it was $163.2 million for the same period in 2017, compared to $153.8 million now. The company generated $27.1 million in cash from operations during the quarter, ending the period with $346.5 million in cash and cash equivalents, and the quarter’s GAAP gross margin was 49.2%, compared to 47.1% for the same period last year, with a final GAAP net loss of $13.0 million, or ($0.24) per diluted share.

“We are disappointed with our revenue for the first quarter, which is primarily attributed to underperformance in North America related to high end system orders, specifically from customers in government and other key verticals such as aerospace and automotive. We do not believe that our first quarter revenue represents a fundamental change in the demand environment in the North American market,” said Stratasys CEO Ilan Levin. “We continue to maintain a strong pipeline of opportunities, and are not modifying the full year guidance we issued earlier this year. Despite our revenue results in the period we continued our positive trend of operational discipline and cash generation. We remain committed to our investments in long-term initiatives that include advancements in our core FDM and PolyJet technologies, new metal additive manufacturing platform, advanced composite materials, and software and application development.”

3D Systems Reporting Increased Revenue and GAAP Loss