3D Printing: Who are the Next M&A Targets for 3D Systems?

M&A activity within the 3D printing space is heating up – not because of a flock of different buyers but primarily because of one: South Carolina-based 3D Systems, a NYSE-listed (ticker: DDD | market cap: $4.3B) provider of 3D content-to-print products including printers and imaging software. In the past five years, 3D Systems has acquired at least 30 privately-held companies with 10 of those acquisitions coming in 2012 and 2013, including recently Rapid Product Development Group in May and Valhalla Partners-backed Geomagic in January. Meanwhile, other publicly-traded 3D printing companies including Organovo and Stratasys, which merged with another 3-D printing company Objet in 2012, have been less acquisitive, but given the increasing activity and innovation happening in 3D printing, these players may increase their level of activity as well.

Below is a list of acquisitions by 3D Systems since 2009:

While venture capital activity into the 3D printing category is still in its early stages (only $11M invested across 4 deals in Q1’13), we identified ten start-ups ranging from Red Dot Ventures-backed 3D printer maker Pirate3DP to 3D scanning company Matterport, infused with a $6M Series A investment in March from investors including Greylock Partners and Qualcomm Ventures that may eventually fall into 3D Systems’ eventual acquisition path.

The complete list of 10 3D Printing companies can be found on the ‘Research’ tab, after logging in to CB Insights. (Note: The list of companies is only available to paid subscribers with access to CB Insider.)