Shapeways (3D Printing Startup) Raises $5MM Series A from USV | Hacker News Reader

Shapeways (3D Printing Startup) Raises $5MM Series A from USV

shapeways.com

There is a relevant (albeit vague) U.S. bill in committee to establish a "National Fab Lab Network": http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-6003

This is the future!!! I remember when I saw this website a year ago, and it seemed then that the majority of items would be purchased for only the price of the material used (could be mistaken about that). I can understand talented people who want to make a buck going away from that "business model".

But imagine if even a little of the "open source" culture rubs onto this community, prices could fall incredibly low for super interesting products. I can really see this taking off.

While I certainly don't mean to dampen your enthusiasm, it takes more than open source culture to get those prices to drop. This industry is an absolute minefield for intellectual property. Just like 2D printing, 3D printing manufacturers make roughly 70% of their cash from the sale of materials, and this means there's no incentive for them to drop.

Of course, this isn't stopping people from knocking them off for cents on the dollar, but still.

Yes but there is more than one reason to charge a lot for a product, one is the material used (which I don't expect to change much), but there are many others, such as creativity of design, utility, etc.

When you look at Shapeway's store you can see so much intricacy in some products. With a $10 block of plastic I can make a product that would otherwise sell for $100, now sell for $10.

Trust me, I'm totally on your side. Theres a reason this tech has been around since the 80s, but things like the MakerBot has only happened recently, that's all I'm saying.

The reason is that the software was always very difficult (and expensive)

People that had, and could drive, Solidworks weren't interested in making one-off bits of jewelry and the artists that were couldn't drive the CAD system.

There are lots of industries riddled with IP and it is not stopping them to be huge and successful.

I think there are lots of opportunities in this market and prices will go down. But I think the whole ecosystem of 3D printing has to change to accomplish this. Maybe Shapeways can contribute to this.

Wow. Everything is crazy expensive. $40 for a little plastic robot that doesn't move? Even if -I- had designed it, I wouldn't pay $40 for plastic printout of it.

Shapeways' prices are actually fairly competitive. 3D printing isn't cheap.

My point wasn't the 3D printing cost. Or about 3D printing in general. I know it can be really useful, and these would be good prices for those things.

My point was the objects available for sale. Like that robot. They don't make sense, especially for that price.

You don't go to Shapeways as an alternative to Toys R Us. They serve the market of DIY enthusiasts, independent artists, people who need models for mechanical R&D, etc. That $40 part can be used to check fit and proportion before going to a process like injection molding or as the basis for R&D. Shapeways, better than any other company in the space opens up these expensive machines to individuals at fair prices.

You have to compare that to the other options.

Protomold starts at $1500, they have a different business but somewhat comparable.

Makerbot has some options for cheap, but you are still paying in the thousands.

Commercial rapid prototyping machines are tens of thousands and up.

Online CNC places charge roughly the same price as Shapeways for much simplier parts that I can make on a mill in a half hour.

So for net shape parts with fine detail in low quantities, shapeway has my business.

For larger quantities, I'm going to protomold.

I am unfamiliar with the details of Shapeways offerings, but it might be cheap enough that a company would not buy a rapid prototyping machine and prefer to just buy things through Shapeway and have them overnighted. If you don't do it that often, it might be worth it.

Depends on how you look at it. If you imagine that every piece is made uniquely for you to your specifications, packaged and shipped to anywhere in the world then it is quite good. And it also depends on the product. There is a lot of jewelry or Apple accessories which are very reasonably priced.

Just woke up and saw this. Awesome. Congrats to Peter and everyone else at Shapeways, this is great!

This just made my space a lot more interesting. CloudFab doesn't exactly _compete_ with Shapeways, but when explaining what we do, we've had a lot of people be very skeptical on the whole mass customization market. Hopefully this makes people take it a bit more seriously.

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