3D Printing Post Processing Boosted by €15M Investment in DyeMansion

German post processing leader DyeMansion has secured €15 million in funding. The startup has opted not to go for venture capital (VC) funding, but instead is receiving €4 million from the European Innovation Council and €11 million from the European Investment Bank. This is a significant raise for the post-processing sector and really validates that segment of the 3D printing market. As I’ve said before, the better DyeMansion and its competitors become, the cheaper and more consumer-friendly our parts get.

“The financial support of the EU as well as the additional expertise on the board will help DyeMansion continue to lead the transformation of the 3D-printing industry at the forefront. Combined with the momentum in the fourth quarter of 2021 and the continued support of our existing investors, we are now well positioned to continue to energetically develop relevant, highly industrial technologies that help our customers produce 3D-printed products with superior quality,” said DyeMansion CEO Felix Ewald.

“I got to know Felix and Philipp already before the incorporation of DyeMansion in  2015 and I am more than happy that I had the chance to support them ever since. I  continue to be very impressed with what this strong team has achieved so far. Their  technology has been a key driver in developing the Additive Manufacturing market further and in enabling high-volume applications. Their outstanding results last  quarter and a strong pipeline for 2022 show the great potential of DyeMansion. And the best is yet to come,” said Arno Held, Managing Partner of AM Ventures.

The company has also appointed two new board members Felix Reinshagen and Peter Nietzer. Peter is the Chairman of Voxeljet’s advisory board, so he brings a lot of relevant information on capital raising, as well as quick expansion (and expanding too quickly). Felix is a startup maven who was previously with McKinsey ( or “McExcel” as I like to call it), so expect more raises and segmentation. All in all, the firm seems to be “grown-up-ifying” for a more mature global future. This will help it attract more capital and gain credibility with large firms. This seems to be happening at a key moment in DyeMansion’s history, with the company shipping over 100 units in Q4 of last year.

Nicklas Bergman, EIC Fund Investment Committee member, said,

“We are proud  to announce the EIC Fund support to DyeMansion. Through this investment, the EIC  Fund is backing the additive manufacturing post-processing company growth and helping this company to implement a more sustainable supply chain.”

Players like DyeMansion can really act as a flywheel for our entire industry and make many more business cases viable. Therefore, this is excellent news for all of us. I think that going with European investors is also a smart move, since they’ll tend to have a more long-term focus than VCs and have greater patience more generally. We’re long used to companies raising tens of millions in the OEM space, but this is a significant amount of money for post-processing and should allow DyeMansion to expand globally and improve its offering.

In turn, this should lead to better post-processing equipment on your shop floor over the coming years, which will result in better parts in the hands of your customers. Components will be less expensive, with better finishes and reliability. You’ll have to perform less manual labor, parts will have better finishes. Repeatability will also improve.

I really believe that AM Flow, Post Process, Solukon, DyeMansion, Pulvermeister, LuxYours and others are key to our future. Their growth, increased R&D spending, and continued progress will make all of our lives easier. Manual labor represents perhaps a third of all part costs. By reducing this quickly, we can produce many millions more parts competitive with traditional processes.

If we are to manufacture at scale, we must, in my opinion, have fully automated part handling from idea to UPS. We must also, I believe, have quality assurance processes in place that check every single component. Work on these solutions can happen in parallel to machine, software, and material development. Once these solutions are mature they can be dropped into our supply chain. It’s this separation of concern that can be a real force multiplier for us.

All of the above would be enhanced if the EIC Fund’s thinking is adopted by many. To simply look at our growth, one concludes that we’re an adorable little industry of $20 billion which grows at 30% per year in revenue. But to see 3D printing—and specifically automated finishing and part handling—as a key element of a new supply chain, new local manufacturing, and supply chain resilience is a very powerful narrative. Especially in Europe, that kind of logic helps unlock a lot of revenue because it marries “Made in Germany”, with new technology, manufacturing edge, industry 4.0 and more ecological production. If our technology is looked on in that way, we become much more top of mind in officialdom. I hope that this continues and that we’ll see many more raises for DyeMansion competitors and a strong industry result from that.