Quantica Keeps Raking It In: Inkjet 3D Printing OEM Extends Series A to Nearly €20M

Quantica, the Berlin-based original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of multi-material inkjet 3D printers, has announced that the company’s Series A funding has increased to nearly €20 million after an extension of the round. British private equity and VC firm West Hill Capital led the extension, with participation from Korean VC firm Bigbang Angels.

Quantica’s Series A originally closed in April 2023, with the company landing €10 million guaranteed, and an additional €4 million contingent upon performance. One of Quantica’s goals with the Series A funding was to release the commercial version of its NovoJet printer, which the company achieved in November 2023, announcing the NovoJet OPEN at last year’s Formnext.

Quantica also released an AI-driven simulation software platform at the end of 2023, called MultiSlice. The company plans to use the latest funding to expand hiring and continue scaling up production.

While Quantica’s core proficiencies are in the dental market, the company’s mult-material inkjet focus should appeal to a rather diverse customer base, perhaps most immediately in robotics and consumer goods. Additionally, Quantica is especially well-positioned to benefit from the ongoing global boom in manufacturing R&D, as ecosystem versatility and automation seem to be two of the features that are most highly prioritized by the stakeholders driving that boom.

The generally dour sentiment surrounding AM investment that pervaded the public markets in 2023 hasn’t subsided in 2024, but the story has been somewhat different for VC and private equity. It may simply be that, in a much more mature technological/industrial landscape, investors have to work harder to pick the right companies.

That said, if equity markets and the global economy continue to demonstrate resilience, it’s likely that we could see AM companies once more weighing going the IPO route. If that does indeed happen over the next couple of years, even if Quantica doesn’t become one of those companies, it is nonetheless a good model for the type of company that might succeed at going public. If the AI explosion has legs, it is only a matter of time before it spreads to the manufacturing sector.

Images courtesy of Quantica