Materialise (MTLS) IPO Priced at $12.00/share, Begins Trading Today

At the end of last year and beginning of this year, 3D printing stocks were on fire. Any company related to 3D printing could have entered the market via an IPO, or reverse merger, and instantly obtained a valuation, likely much higher than if they were to go public today. With that said, the fact that the 3D printing sector is down as of late, has not made Belgium based company, Materialise change course. Today Materialise CEO, Wilfried rang the opening bell for the NASDAQ, and the company’s shares (MTLS) began trading for the very first time.

The initial public offering was priced at $12 per share, which was the lower end of the expected price range of $12 – $14 for the shares. Shares began trading shortly after the opening of the market, and quickly jumped around between $11.06 and $12.00/share.

The company which specializes in the 3D printing of prototypes as a service for their clients, is headquartered in Belgium. They operate RapidFit which is a service that provides 3D printed customized fixtures, jigs, and control solutions to clients.  They also run i.materialize which is an online 3D printing service. In 2013 alone, the company manufactured over 500,000 medical devices, production parts, and prototypes, while generating €68.7 million in revenue, which represented a 16.3 percent growth year over year. For the first quarter of 2014 they broke even in terms of net income.

The company used Piper Jaffray and Credit Suisse as their joint book-running mangers for the offering of 8 million shares, which will raise the company approximately $96 million in funding.

Founded in 1990, and employing 997 people, Materialise could grow substantially over the coming years, as they put to use their IPO funding and expand their business in scope and scale. The offering will give investors another pure play additive manufacturing stock to consider investing into, as the sector seems to have leveled off in recent weeks. Let us know if you plan on investing in this new stock in the Materialise (MTLS) forum thread on 3DPB.com  At the time this article was published, shares of Materialise were trading at $11.57/share.