We’re excited to share that our investors have put additional capital toward our mission to help creators! We made the announcement publicly today.
What does this mean for Shapeways — and more importantly for you? We’re using this capital infusion to take redefining product creation to a level that goes beyond the 3D printing we do today. Having focused on consumer 3D printing as a service, we’ve learned about the incredible ways in which you’ve used our services, and have given us ideas about how we can further support bringing your products and business ideas to life.
Because of this, we’re launching additional services on our journey to become the complete end-to-end platform helping creators ‘design, make, and sell,’ regardless of 3D modeling experience! When we started making the list of potential services, everything from design help to custom packaging, there were many unmet needs and opportunities.
We started with three initial services that we are previewing today:
Design with Shapeways
We’re lowering the barriers to creation for everyone, regardless of skill set, by connecting them with a network of skilled 3D modelers. Whether you’re a founder with a product idea or a hobbyist looking to optimize a scale model or more, we will connect you to a network of people through a simple service. These designers can translate your idea into the specifications required for production in the more than 60 materials and finishes we offer.
For our existing ‘Hire a Designers,’ we’re proud of the design community we’ve cultivated at Shapeways and will be working with you over the next few months to integrate you into our service so that we can grow together.
Customizer technology
Our team is developing in-house brands to showcase our customizer technology, showing our community our capabilities. These tools will enable product customization through a guided experience. The first brand is Spring & Wonder, an elegantly simple interface that allows anyone to customize and edit 3D models to design and print unique jewelry. This is the first of several in-house brands to be announced this year to show the potential of Shapeways’ modeling tools that will soon be put in the hands of creators for their own ideas and businesses. In short, we’re working out the kinks on ourselves first rather than beta’ing on our customers! We want to show the potential of what our new tools can do so that we can then put them in your hands for your business ideas next.
Selling Services
Last but not least, we’re in the early stages of offering our customers more than just our existing marketplace. We’re developing ways in which we can empower our community to better market and brand themselves to create scalable, sustainable small businesses. We already have a number of creators successfully generating revenue through their Shapeways shops, so we want to further grow this community of entrepreneurs. We’re exploring newly supported mobile-optimized storefronts, marketing and branding services, integration with our systems for outsourced manufacturing logistics, customized packaging, and more.
These are only the start of what our team is rolling out to expand our capabilities to support bringing all your great products to life, and we’re so excited to keep you updated on more projects to come!
Greg is Shapeways’ CEO. He joined the company in early 2018.
Several months ago I saw Items that you sold for your associates, namely 1/87 automobiles. Been trying to find that page for the last month,. will you turn me on to it? thank you