Formlabs, a designer and manufacturer of 3D printing systems with its headquarters in Somerville, Mass. and Germany, officially announced on Monday that it has raised $30 million in Series C funding led by Tyche Partners – a Menlo Park, Calif.-based VC firm that focuses on investments in early growth stage companies, mainly working on hardware.
The round, which was anticipated by a regulatory filing with the SEC dated April 3rd, included participation from Shenzhen Capital Group and UpNorth Investment Limited, as well as existing investors DFJ, Pitango and Foundry Group.
The investment will be used to broaden Formlabs’ product portfolio, and scale operations particularly in China and Asia, the company said in a press release. Formlabs already has more than 300 employees in the U.S., 100 in Europe and an undisclosed number of employees in China and Japan. The next phase in growth will accelerate maturation in these Asian markets, the company said.
This announcement comes ahead of Formlabs’ headquarters expansion in Somerville, where it will soon be opening a new 18,000 square foot facility to add to its "growing campus headquarters," the company said. Currently, the website listed around 90 full-time openings in the Somerville office, almost 30 openings in Germany and only two openings in Asia (one in Shenzhen, China and one in Japan).
"We continue to push the boundaries of professional 3D printing and it has resulted in significant growth for the company," Max Lobovsky, co-founder and CEO of Formlabs, said in a statement. "For many years, China has been catching up in manufacturing capabilities to the U.S. and Europe, but recently it has matched or surpassed in many areas. Chinese manufacturers will be critical to figuring out how to adopt 3D printing into higher volume manufacturing applications."
The Series C round brings the total investment to date to $85 million. The company's latest round was $35 million in new funding led by Foundry Group and Autodesk in 2016.
