In a recent bid to raise money, Shapeways has cut a $30 million deal along with Lux Capital. The various parties involved in raising funds include Union Square Ventures, INKEF Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, all of whom are earlier investors recommitting to the partnership. This new round of capital makes it possible for Shapeways to boost its growth and launch new services.
Shapeways has been a staple business within 3D printing for quite some time. While new investment is hardly a surprise, considering how well they’ve been doing, their new level of growth is worth noting. The company has achieved 140,000 uploads every month and recently hit their 10 millionth product printed. These milestones were, no doubt, a large part in boosting investors confidence.
Shapeways is looking to the future now, with all new services that aid their users’ printing experience. The company has put out a statement saying that the new funding will help “accelerate company growth and launch additional services to support Shapeways’ overall vision to become the complete end-to-end platform helping creators ‘design, make, and sell,’ regardless of 3D modeling experience.”
Investing in Custom Jewelery & End-to-End Services
Among these new features that Shapeways wishes to add to its portfolio is their Spring and Wonder service. The service will allow users to store their own designs for jewelery while allowing them to tweak the look, materials, and designs. Shapeways intends to go even further with other services over the coming year.
The company intends to launch an end-to-end service to allow creators to form their own small businesses. By taking advantage of the website’s features, users can manage their brand, website, marketing support, merchandise and customer service. A select few clients are beta-testing this service, as of now but Shapeways will elaborate on the details in the coming months.
Shapeways continues to grow and, by the looks of it, may become instrumental to the functioning of many professional user. It’s a good move to expand deeper into retail service providing as many companies may need a sales platform. There’s no doubt that the company’s new ideas will be an important topic of discussion in the coming months.
