The history of listed 3D printing companies since the 2022 SPAC crash, quarter by quarter: deals, delistings, bankruptcies and results, each with its sources.
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Deep dive
AMPulse's 2021-2025 funding data shows Chinese metal AM suppliers rising from 42% to 53% of a shrinking funded cohort, while US aerospace and defense held 18-21 companies a year as everyone else fell.
AM Research put the total additive manufacturing market at $4.5 billion in Q2 2026, up 12% from Q2 2025, with metal growing faster than polymer and services now a large share of both segments.
A Texas jury found Bambu Lab willfully infringed four Stratasys patents covering purge towers and force detection, awarding $27.6 million in past damages. A second case is still unscheduled.
In five weeks Stratasys agreed to buy Markforged from Nano Dimension for a little over a third of what Nano paid, Creality opened 80 percent above its Hong Kong offer price, and BigRep announced it was leaving the Frankfurt market.
A quiet fourth quarter, then full-year results between February and March 2026. Xometry grew revenue 25.9 percent and Protolabs set a record, while Nano Dimension lost 293.6 million dollars and 3D Systems owed its profit to a software sale.
The Berlin maker of large-format printers listed at 11.20 euros in July 2024 and traded at 5.00 a month later. Revenue fell from 11.2 to 6.3 million euros, and in June 2026 it announced the sale of its operating company to existing backers and the end of its listing.
Desktop Metal filed for Chapter 11 117 days after Nano Dimension finished buying it, Nano replaced its CEO and hired bankers, and Velo3D, pushed off the NYSE a year earlier, started trading on Nasdaq again.
A running snapshot of the sector after the consolidation: Nano Dimension selling what it bought, Markforged heading to Stratasys, Velo3D back on Nasdaq, Creality listed in Hong Kong, and Xometry, the one that owns no printers, still growing fastest.
In three weeks of April, Nano Dimension completed both acquisitions, Markforged was delisted, Organovo became VivoSim, and Stratasys closed its Fortissimo rescue. The consolidation of 2023 finally happened, on distressed terms.
The activist-installed board that took over Nano Dimension in December now had to close the Desktop Metal and Markforged acquisitions the old board had signed, while feuding with Desktop Metal over the price.
A court ruling and a shareholder vote handed the activist Murchinson control of Nano Dimension, the CEO was terminated and six directors resigned, all while the company was mid-way through swallowing two competitors.
In one quarter Nano Dimension agreed to buy both Desktop Metal and Markforged, and Velo3D was pushed off the NYSE onto the over-the-counter market. Consolidation and collapse in the same three months.
The quarter the boardroom fight at cash-rich Nano Dimension spilled into open letters. Murchinson wanted the CEO and board gone; the company was about to spend its cash on acquisitions instead.
A quiet quarter with one real casualty: voxeljet gave up its Nasdaq listing to cut costs, an early sign that for the smaller names the question had shifted from growth to survival.
The year the biggest 3D printing companies spent more energy trying to buy each other than selling printers: Nano Dimension, Stratasys, 3D Systems and Desktop Metal, and a shareholder vote that killed the whole thing.
The year the blank-cheque money ran out. Desktop Metal, Markforged, Velo3D and the rest had gone public at high valuations in 2020 and 2021; in 2022 most of it evaporated, and Nano Dimension quietly loaded the gun for the 2023 takeover war.
After two years of fending off takeovers, Stratasys took a 120 million dollar investment from Fortissimo Capital. It steadied the balance sheet, and it quietly made a private-equity firm the largest shareholder ahead of Nano Dimension.