In an interview with TCT at CES in 2015, former Ultimaker (pre-uppercase ‘Maker’ era) CEO and co-founder Siert Wijnia remarked that the 3D printing industry was “moving rapidly out of the stone age of 3D printing into the Iron Age”, elaborating that the technology was finally moving away from printing “things” and into an era of printing products with genuine functionality and purpose. At a consumer-centric trade show filled with plastic statuettes and copycat polymer extrusion machines, the sentiment was somewhat revolutionary at the time and saw UltiMaker shifting towards a more professional user base.
UltiMaker grew out of a FabLab in Utrecht in 2011 when a group of friends, inspired by the RepRap project, decided to build their own 3D printer. Shortly after, they began shipping their first wooden laser-cut kits under a Creative Commons license, establishing a name within the maker community and the burgeoning collective of 3D printing start-ups coming out of the Netherlands at the time.
In the intervening years, 3D printing has gotten more crowded and more competitive. Players have come and gone, and consumer-focused hardware prices have shrunk to a point where pretty much anyone who wants one – which isn't everyone, as previously predicted – can feasibly drop one into their Amazon basket. At the same time, newer brands like Bambu Labs and Creality have taken a large chunk of the market, with the most recent figures from CONTEXT reporting a 60% share of the entry-level machine segment (those priced at less than $2,500) now belongs to those companies.
UltiMaker, too, evolved. Its machines started appearing on production lines at brands like Heineken and L’Oreal, producing tools and manufacturing aids, building out its ecosystem with optimised materials and auxiliary hardware along the way. But as the 3D printing market continues to deal with turbulence; emerging threats place greater demand on reliable solutions; and the popularity of lower cost systems rises, how is one of the originators of desktop FDM navigating the choppy seas of additive manufacturing in 2025?
“There's so many players and there's a lot of players doing the same thing, which doesn't make a lot of sense,” commented UltiMaker CEO Michiel Alting von Geusau when TCT sat down with him at Formnext last November. New to 3D printing at the time, Alting von Geusau took on the role in 2023, 12 months after the completion of the Ultimaker and MakerBot merger, which brought together two of the most recognisable brands in desktop 3D printing. Since then, UltiMaker has continued with a steady trajectory of new product introductions. Its most recent, the UltiMaker 6S, launched earlier this month, is pitched as its most competitive yet, building on the foundations of the flagship UltiMaker S5 but with a completely redesigned internal architecture featuring new electronics, new motion planner, and optimised material handling. It’s also €500 cheaper. The S6, UltiMaker claims, offers the industrial speed, reliability and quality of the S8, also introduced earlier this year, in a more accessible package and is targeting three user segments: education, manufacturing and defence.
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“The market really needs to evolve,” Alting von Geusau continued. “The biggest issue is that there's [few] techniques that are really in high volume production. And I think that is where maybe the market has miscalculated in the past because they thought it would be so this percentage of the production market, but that's just not happening.”
The arrival of lower cost machines, and their acceptance by industrial players, can’t be ignored, though UltiMaker is steadfast about its positioning. The company says it is operating in a different market, “building valuable systems with great software” rather than “box shifting.” Alting von Geusau claims some customers of UltiMaker’s Factor 4 system, its most industrial-focused platform to date, which arrived last year geared towards ‘light industrial applications’, have reported a return on investment in just three months.
“We are far more in the professional segment and what we try to do is offer more complete solutions,” Alting von Geusau said, pointing to issues around data and IP protection alleged with lower cost alternatives. “For a lot of people, it doesn't matter but I'm sure that for professional companies, it's a huge issue.”
For that reason, UltiMaker is being very clear about where and how its new machines are built. When announcing the S6, the company shared that its printers are being manufactured in the Netherlands under ISO 9001 for Quality Management and ISO 14001 for Environmental Management by BSI Group certifications, citing the stringent demands of its customers in industries such as defence and aerospace. Alting von Geusau believes that by building a reliable ecosystem of hardware, software and materials, with that quality baked in, UltiMaker's offering is unique.
“We cannot compete directly with them just on 3D printer,” Alting von Geusau said of lower cost FDM systems. “But we can compete if we offer a complete ecosystem with a lot of materials, with a lot of good settings, data security, protecting your IP.”
In the battle for 3D printing adoption, security, it seems, is UltiMaker’s biggest line of defence. It’s no surprise, given the rise of in-field military applications, supply chain challenges, and national strategies targeting AM technologies, that UltiMaker has singled out defence as an important market. In 2022, for example, the Royal Netherlands Navy took an unconventional approach to testing the strength of a two-kilogramme plastic 3D printed part printed on an UltiMaker S5 in a Covestro nylon-based polymer loaded with carbon fibre against an armoured vehicle which was 6,000 times heavier. It's also deploying UltiMaker S series 3D printers to produce spare parts on-demand. The Dutch Air Force is also using UltiMaker machines to create custom tools to maintain its fleet of helicopters, fighter jets, and cargo planes. For those customers, where data security is crucial, UltiMaker will be offering a USB-enabled version of the S6, the S6 Secure, a variant that was initially tested on the S8, and features permanent firmware and Loctite screws, and removes the camera and wireless connectivity.
Ultimaker
Lifting a 12-tonne tank with a 2kg link
In a more recent conversation with TCT ahead of the S6 launch, Andy Middleton, UltiMaker SVP EMEA & Global Marketing elaborated, “We've got a very high level of confidence there. The track record, even more bulletproof than before from a hardware perspective.”
The shift to industrial applications is not new for UltiMaker. One of the first big stories to highlight the value of desktop printers in a production environment was Volkswagen Autoeuropa, which reported 98%-cost and 89%-time savings by bringing its tooling, jigs and fixtures production in-house back in 2017. Further companies like IME Automation, North American Lighting and ERIKS have all used UltiMaker's desktop polymer systems, including the inherited MakerBot Method platform, to rapidly produce components like packaging jigs, nesting blocks and welding jigs.
Middleton, said, “We're seen in the market as that company that delivers all of this. And also the trust. That's crucial in the market.”
While MakerBot products underwent a relaunch at the end of 2023 as an education-focused arm, UltiMaker doubled down on its position as the industrial arm of the company with the Factor 4. Middleton recognises its professional-focused systems require a different sell. These aren’t sub $1,000 machines. The S6, while more affordable, is still a $5,000 investment. But Middleton believes strongly in its value proposition (as does UltiMaker – the S6 is the first of its machines to come with an extended two-year warranty). He elaborated that the four times greater speeds offered on the S6, for example, equate to having the output of four S5 machines in one S6 – essentially a $5,000 investment versus $25,000.
"UltiMaker is moving seriously into the professional world of FDM,” Middleton said. “There is no better system out there with the track record and the legacy that we have.”
According to figures from UltiMaker, approximately 40,000 UltiMaker S5s have been installed to date, and there are over 250,000 UltiMaker users worldwide. Its Cura software is also one of the most widely used slicing platforms out there, and its cloud-based Digital Factory provides access to over 300 material profiles. There is a legacy there and an established ecosystem, and UltiMaker believes the S6 is its most straightforward and accessible entry point.
“Today I think UltiMaker has built up a proficiency in 3D printing second to none,” Middleton said. “And now we have the confidence to go into those three specific segments with a great understanding of materials, still remaining open source.”
The 3D printing industry is a very different place to the one the UltiMaker Original landed in. UltiMaker’s repositioning comes at a challenging time for AM. Mergers and acquisitions have changed the landscape dramatically, high interest rates have slowed industrial machine sales, while the application demand in defence, and viability of the technology, is at its highest. “Cautious optimism” is an appropriate mantra. UltiMaker believes its established presence, together with a more accessible machine offering based on one of the most familiar AM processes out there, will allow it to capitalise on this demand while the industry steadies itself.
“A big change is needed,” Alting von Geusau offered of the state of the AM industry back in November. “Because only if you make money, [can you] invest in new solutions and ideas. But it's strange that this market has been there for, I don't know, 15 years and it's taking so long to become profitable. So that really needs to change. We're lucky. We are profitable. But I think we're one of the few in the market. We have to make the change now to think more about what do our clients want instead of what fantastic techniques do we think we have to throw at the market.”
When asked about his personal outlook, Alting von Geusau paraphrased a conversation he’d had a day earlier, where a colleague noted, “this is the mark of the hype and the hope”. He’s optimistic about the future of UltiMaker, believing if it can do things differently, it can be successful. Though don’t expect anything too different any time soon. Instead, the company is keeping its focus narrow, building on its blueprints with products that support its ecosystem and are geared towards key segments where its technology can have the most impact.
“It remains interesting and I'm looking forward to seeing what the market's going to be in five years,” Alting von Geusau said. “And who will still be there.”
