Consolidation is in the additive air. It has been on the lips of many since the Covid-19 pandemic.
Initially, we had the ideal version of consolidation - where two competing companies, or pairs with complementary offerings, would merge in the hope of streamlining businesses and enhancing efficiencies. And now, in waves, we are seeing the harshest version.
While mergers and acquisitions are still taking place, in the last quarter especially, consolidation has taken the form of long-standing AM companies stepping away, and businesses being wound down.
BigRep's 2024 public listing via a SPAC deal proved, largely, to be a waste of time as the brand's holding company delisted recently, selling the shares of the additive manufacturing business onto three other businesses - one of whom is Hage Holding GmbH, the parent company of another 3D printing brand that BigRep has previously acquired. Straightforward? No, and it also tells us little about what the future might hold for BigRep.
In a perhaps more worrying indictment of the additive manufacturing industry, Ricoh redirected its focus away from additive manufacturing with the sale of Ricoh 3D for Healthcare to Myrava, Inc., a company focused on providing access to personalised medical devices and healthcare innovations across the United States. The business was only officially launched in 2025 after several years of operation within Ricoh, but the tech giant is currently prioritising 'investments in scalable businesses that 'align most closely with its primary mission and strengths.'
Würth has been another big brand to step back from additive manufacturing, but rather than sell its additive business, the company wound it down, laying its entire AM team off, leaving a range of customers in the lurch, and only distributing a brief statement to confirm those developments.
And then we had the demise of 3DEO. In our previous Deep Dives report, we focused on contract manufacturers developing and scaling with proprietary additive manufacturing technologies, detailing the opportunities they are chasing, and the effort it takes to get there. 3DEO's insolvency this summer was a timely reminder of the risk that cannot be ignored when pursuing the reward.
For additive manufacturing technology and service providers, the economic climate is still tough going. Some - like those with much broader business scopes - are turning away from their solutions provider businesses, while those for which AM is their be-all-and-end-all forge on with varying levels of success.
They are signs that the consolidation this industry has long been anticipating is coming to fruition. But the potential and the opportunity have not disappeared.
The Q2 2026 financial results released by the industry's public players recently are somewhat of a mixed bag, but there are examples of revenue targets being met, profits being turned, and full-year 2026 guidance being increased. We've also seen several users of the technology - such as Venus Aerospace and SWISSto12 - raise tens of millions of dollars, while Ursa Major announced its move to list publicly just this week.
Read on for analysis on:
What SWISSto12's Series C funding means for additively manufactured RF applications
Q2 2026 financial results
And a round-up of the M&A deals, capital raises & investments, divestitures, bankruptcies, and market analysis
