Stratasys snaps up MakerBot for $403 million

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Israel’s Stratasys has merged  with the New York based desktop 3D printing manufacturer is liable to change the face of the rapidly developing 3-D printing industry .

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Stratasys CEO David Reis

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/ By Stanley Green /

During the last year to 18 months advances in 3-D printing have come on in leaps and bounds, placing this important technology within the financial reach of many companies. The 3D printing industry took another major step forward: Stratasys Inc. (Nasdaq: SSYS)  the leading manufacturer of top of the range 3-D printers has snapped up New York-based MakerBot who have shaken up the market thanks to their ability to design and produce printers that are both inexpensive and user-friendly.

3-D printing technology, which provides the ability to create three-dimensional models of tremendous accuracy by rapidly applying print layers on fast-drying plastic to form a full-scale working model has been around for some time but only within the financial reach of companies with the budget to afford them. The principal advantages of 3-D printing technology is that allows companies to rapidly produce prototypes of new products that they are developing at previously unattainable speeds and at relatively low costs.

That situation is about to change with the news that Rehovot, Israel-based Stratasys, has entered into a merger agreement with MakerBot. MakerBot, headed by its charismatic chief executive Bre Pettis, who also co-founded the New York start-up in 2009, has been recognized as one of the principal figures being the development of groundbreaking technology that has gone a long way to changing the face of the once-exclusive CD printing industry.

Stratasys having earned themselves a particular niche in the high-end 3D printer sector supplying major international corporations as well as government agencies. Stratasys, whose current CEO David Reis, joined them from Objet, another top of the range 3-D printing company with whom they merged last year, creating a group with a market capitalization of around $3 billion.

The company employs more than 1000 people and is a holder of over 500 either granted or pending manufacturing patents across the world.  Stratasys produces a range of more than one hundred 3D printers and materials to suit them , a choice that is regarded as being the widest in the industry.

Terms of the merger that have been announced reports that Stratasys, will pay out an initial $403 million in shares to acquire MakerBot you are certainly the us a voice that you are you with a 30 year here are you you you you are you are you you you are you are you you you are you are you are you are you you you you you are you you you you you for the company, with a father approximately $200 million liable to be paid if the MakerBot reaches certain growth and profit targets from the signing of the merger agreement up to the end of 2014. In the event of MakerBot reaching their targets, Stratasys is liable to pay out close to 40 times MakerBot’s total annual revenue of 2012, which reached around 15 million dollars.

Market commentators express their opinion would make an ideal fit with the amalgamated companies covering almost the entire spread of 3-D printing, and the exchange of knowledge that it would enable would be tremendously beneficial to both parties as they seek to strengthen their position in fast-growing.

MakerBot has already been the recipient of around $10 million in venture capital funding, with some of the principal investors being Jeff Bezos founder of Amazon.

MakerBot has succeeded in selling more than 20, 000 3-D printers since it was formed in 2009, with significant half of those sales being recorded only within the past nine months.

On the news of the merger shares in Stratasys jumped by 3.5 per cent in after-hour trading on the New York stock exchange.