Shapeways

Shapeways, Inc. is a global, 3D printing marketplace and service, publicly traded company. Users design and upload 3D printable files, and Shapeways prints the objects for them or others. 3D printing resources are available for university students, faculty, and educators with an .EDU email Users can have objects printed in over 55 materials and finishes, these include: plastics, precious metals, steel and food-safe ceramics, which were discontinued and have been replaced by porcelain materials. As of 2021, Shapeways has printed and sold more than 20 million objects. Shapeways began as a spin-off of Royal Philips Electronics, the Netherlands in 2007. It was founded by Peter Weijmarshausen, Robert Schouwenburg and Marleen Vogelaar and the idea came forth at the Philips design department. The concept and venture plan was initially created in 2005 by Dolf Wittkämper within the Philips Lifestyle Incubator program which offers support for start-up companies with innovative ideas. In 2008 a service was launched that allowed customers to design their own 3-dimensional products through rapid prototyping by sending a CAD-file to the Shapeways website to 3D print. Designers can also sell their own designs to be 3D printed on demand for customers, Shapeways handles the financial transaction, manufacture, distribution and customer service; profits go to the designer. Originally the rapid prototyping could only print using simple materials. Later nylon was added as a possibility. In 2009 it was made public that they succeeded in also manufacturing stainless steel. As of 2012 the scale and possible materials have been further expanded to include sterling silver, acrylic, full color 3D printing and food safe ceramics. On October 19, 2012 Shapeways opened a new '3-D printing factory' in Queens, New York that could house 50 industrial printers and produce millions of consumer-designed products a year. The option now exist for consumers to adapt designs without prior knowledge of 3D design programming.