Solid Concepts has been making a lot of headway in the 3D printing space as of late. Not only have they been gaining a lot of notoriety for the creation of the first ever 3D printed metal hand gun, but they also have close to 20 years of experience in the additive manufacturing field.
Today Stratasys has announced that they have completed this acquisition, and they have plans to combine Solid Concepts as well as another previously acquired company, Harvest Technologies (acquisition expected to be complete at the end of this month), with their already existing digital manufacturing service, Redeye. In doing so, they will create one all-encompassing additive manufacturing services business unit.
“We look forward to enhancing our customer offering with the completion of this transaction,” explained David Reis, chief executive officer of Stratasys. “With Solid Concepts’ deep knowledge of manufacturing and vertical focus, such as medical and aerospace, Stratasys will be even better positioned to meet our customers’ evolving additive manufacturing requirements. We are delighted to welcome the talented employees of Solid Concepts to the Stratasys family and look forward to completing the acquisition of Harvest in order to form a leading strategic platform to better meet customers’ needs.”
Stratasys’ RedEye project is an interesting one. It allows them to not only be a manufacturer of 3D printers, but also a provider of 3D printing as a service. Not too many companies out there can say that they do the same. It should be interesting to see how RedEye evolves over the course of the next several months and years. RedEye utilizes a large amount of different 3D printers and materials to create both prototypes and final producton parts for their clients. Some of the materials used are PolyJet Photopolymers, Cast Polyurethanes, and FDM Thermoplastics. The additon of Solid Concepts’ experiences should help RedEye become one of the leading additive manufacturing services in the world.
What do you think about this acquisitions? Discuss in the Stratasys Acquisition forum thread on 3DPB.com
