A grapefruit printed on an Mcor 3D printer
Dunleer, Ireland based Mcor Technologies is known for their very innovative 3D printers which use a type of technology not commonly seen within the industry. Instead of using plastics, resins, or other environmental unfriendly materials in the printing process, they use paper. That’s right, your ordinary office paper – even used paper. Their printers print ink onto the outside edges of the individual sheets of paper, then bond hundreds or even thousands of these pieces of paper together, prior to cutting it into the shape required for a 3-dimensional print.
Listening to my description, you are probably asking yourself, “How could this possibly could not work?” However, it does work, and it works amazingly well (see images).
Mcor was founded by the MacCormack brothers (Conor and Fintan) almost 10 years ago, and have increased revenues by 800% in the past 2 years. Their printers are mostly purchased by architects, educational institutions, print shops, and design studios.
Mcor Iris 3D Printer
Late yesterday, WHEB Partners, a Munich and London based private equity fund manager, announced that they have invested €6.6 million in growth capital into Mcor Technologies.
“We are experiencing strong demand internationally for our products and this investment from WHEB will allow us to deliver on our exciting sales pipeline and, together with WHEB, build Mcor into a global 3D printing company,” stated Dr Conor MacCormack, CEO and co-founder of Mcor. “We now have all the ingredients necessary to create a world beating 3D printing technology company, with new and innovative products on the horizon.”
A Brain – printed on an Mcor 3D printer
WHEB Partners, is a very large private equity firm, that currently has over €255 million under management.
“We very much look forward to working together with Mcor to help them capitalise on their impressive growth potential,” explained Dr. Alexander Domin, the Partner at WHEB who led the investment transaction. “The 3D printing market has experienced tremendous growth recently and Mcor is well positioned to take advantage of this trend thanks to its truly unique technology. Mcor’s 3D printers allow objects to be printed in high resolution colour while using environmentally friendly materials that cost 5% to 20% that of other technologies’ models. This potentially saves Mcor’s customers hundreds of thousands of dollars over several years of ownership. As such, this deal perfectly exemplifies the resource efficiency and growth opportunity themes in which WHEB invests.”
It should be interesting to see what Mcor decides to use the funds for. Will they use it to expand their footprint, or will they potentially acquire other firms? This is yet to be seen.
Discuss this latest news in the thread discussing this investment into Mcor on 3DPB.com.