Xiaomi has a relationship with Snapmaker? [Source: Fabbaloo]

There’s been another huge investment announcement for an Asian 3D printer manufacturer.

Previously, we saw major investments into Bambu Lab and Elegoo. Bambu Lab saw a massive investment from Chinese megacorp Tencent, while Elegoo had a massive investment from drone leader DJI.

These moves put these companies big steps ahead of competitors, as their investors have provided enormous sums of money that can be used to grow operations. In addition, their widespread networks can be leveraged to drive additional sales of 3D printers.

This leaves their competitors that have not received similar massive investments on the sidelines. That is, unless they too receive investments.

And that is precisely what was announced this week: Snapmaker received “tens of millions” in a Series B funding round. The round participants included a number of Chinese investment firms, but one of them is particularly interesting: Shunwei Capital.

Shunwei Capital was co-founded by Xiaomi founder Lei Jun.

Xiaomi is well known as the producer of electronic products, including smartphones and even electric vehicles. They are among the top sellers of smartphones worldwide, with annual revenue exceeding US$50B. However, this is not Xiaomi investing in Snapmaker; the investment is simply related.

Nevertheless, we now have a very intriguing picture emerging: DJI+Elegoo, Tencent+Bambu Lab, and now Xiaomi+Snapmaker. It seems these tech giants are placing their bets on one or another of the leading desktop 3D printer companies.

Investment Implications

There are multiple implications here.

First, the remaining Chinese companies without such investment may be in a more challenging position. This could include Anycubic, Creality and several others. It may be that they are quietly working behind the curtain to obtain similar backing.

Second, other large Chinese companies may see these three investments as a signal that desktop 3D printing could grow substantially, and wish to get in on the action. We could see companies such as Alibaba, Huawei, ByteDance, Baidu, Xpeng, BYD or others pick a player and enter the game. Creality has planned an IPO, so that could make investment in that company much easier in the future.

Third, the flush of cash could enable each of these companies to dramatically widen their reach into the 3D print world. Bambu Lab in particular produces equipment that is essentially what would have been called a “professional” machine only a few years ago, except at desktop prices. It would not be a stretch to speculate that the big investors could steer these companies into competition with industrial additive Manufacturing equipment in the future.

Fourth, in addition to the left-out-of-the-party Chinese 3D printer manufacturers, there are all the Western 3D printer manufacturers. These would include Prusa, LulzBot, and many other smaller operations. At present, not one of these companies has backing equivalent to what is happening in China. It is hard to see why Western tech giants would invest in these companies. Would Facebook invest in Prusa Research, for example? Competition in the long term just got a lot harder for Western 3D printer companies.

Via Snapmaker

By Kerry Stevenson

Kerry Stevenson, aka "General Fabb" has written over 8,000 stories on 3D printing at Fabbaloo since he launched the venture in 2007, with an intention to promote and grow the incredible technology of 3D printing across the world. So far, it seems to be working!

View all of Kerry Stevenson’s posts.

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