Bear in mind Villeneuve’s Dune? The pursuit of uncommon and highly effective spice (“enterprise alpha“) introduced heroes into deserts hiding sandworms and shifting risks (for these unfamiliar, consider a high-stakes quest by way of a harmful desert). Additive manufacturing (AM) in 2025 feels comparable: a subject with huge promise, but buried below unstable terrain and a scarcity of knowledge. And similar to on the desert planet in Dune often called Arrakis, chasing unicorns with out visibility usually ends in catastrophe, the type that comes from a sudden encounter with sandworms.
The standard of knowledge is unhealthy, and it’s all the time outdated
Startup funding knowledge — from platforms like Crunchbase, PitchBook, and others — is usually inaccurate usually, and that is much more so in 3D printing. Most knowledge sources depend on information and bulletins for his or her data. And it’s normally introduced late, solely to boost the subsequent spherical of funding. Furthermore, business reviews are sometimes annual and behind a paywall, normally priced past the attain of small funds and entrepreneurs. In the meantime, China, which is house to the second-highest variety of 3D printing startups, is behind a (3D printed) wall similar to its web.
What’s So Distinctive About Our 3D Printing/AM “Arrakis”?
It’s a hardware-first business, so it results in many issues with delays, knowledge reporting, and mapping:
- It’s very totally different for AI, the place we are able to benchmark the brand new OpenAI’s o3-pro mannequin the identical day it was launched. {Hardware} takes time to design, produce, and look ahead to the sensible outcomes. There’s no CAC (buyer acquisition value), no LTV (lifetime worth), no NRR (internet income retention) — the software-style progress metrics buyers know nicely — simply customized equipment, proprietary supplies, and intently guarded PDFs.
- The subsequent drawback is the availability chain. It’s fragmented throughout industries and geographies, with no unified benchmarks in place.
- Founders additionally cover their IP because the core moat. It additionally results in a scarcity of dependable knowledge.
- Lastly, only a few firms on this house have reached actual scale and market adoption, making significant benchmarking almost unattainable.
Previous Hype Scorched Investor Belief in 3D Printing
The 3D printing hype cycles of the previous decade provide clear warnings for buyers:
- Desktop Steel, as soon as valued at $2.5 billion through a SPAC, missed aggressive income targets and confronted mounting losses. A proposed merger with Stratasys in 2023 after burning by way of capital was in the end referred to as off after investor pushback.
- Markforged adopted the same path — public through SPAC (particular objective acquisition firm) offers, then crashed over 90% as adoption lagged guarantees.
- Public pioneers like 3D Programs and Stratasys noticed large inventory declines post-2014 after overpaying for acquisitions and failing to retain prospects.
- Cathie Wooden‘s ARKQ fund (ARK Autonomous Know-how & Robotics ETF), together with the 3D Printing ETF, noticed sharp declines as overly optimistic forecasts did not materialize.
Cathie Wooden’s official efficiency https://www.ark-funds.com/funds/prnt
Most of this collapse was brought on by poor visibility into buyer traction, margins, and scalability — signs of an information desert.
Why it’s an enormous alternative
But regardless of the scorched belief, we nonetheless want additive manufacturing’s spice — as a result of AM is quietly turning into the muse of future manufacturing. In a world drifting towards deglobalization, 3D printing affords quick, native, tool-free manufacturing. U.S. coverage is shifting too: the Division of Protection (DoD), the Protection Superior Analysis Initiatives Company (DARPA), and NASA now fund AM for housing, protection, and house infrastructure.
Cyril Shtabtsovsky
Mixed with AI, the sector is transferring from prototyping to deployment. We could also be on the early majority part — nonetheless ignored, however strategically important. I undertaking that the business will double or triple within the subsequent two to 3 years, not resulting from hype, however out of necessity.
How AI Can Bridge the Information Hole
The dearth of structured knowledge in AM isn’t only a drawback — it’s a product alternative. AI is already making startup ecosystems searchable: RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Technology) pipelines, semantic indexing launched by startup databases like Specter, Crunchbase, and AlphaSemantic, and different improvements are starting to vary how we monitor non-public markets.
And at last, as extra 3D printing firms mature and go public, demand for structured insights will rise, and we can have extra knowledge factors to investigate.
Concerning the Writer: Cyril Shtabtsovsky is an entrepreneur and enterprise capitalist targeted on frontier applied sciences, together with additive manufacturing, AI, and superior supplies. He’s the founding father of AlphaSemantic, a startup utilizing AI to make enterprise capital extra data-driven. Cyril presently advises Aloniq, an early-stage VC agency, and mentors startups by way of Alchemist Accelerator. He has served as a decide for the Enterprise Capital Funding Competitors and leads the Armenian chapter of Founders Operating Membership, a worldwide neighborhood of over 20,000 entrepreneurs.
All photographs and graphs courtesy of Cyril Shtabtsovsky.
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