Sculpteo has a new owner: 3D Prod.
The beleaguered 3D print service is now part of 3D Prod, a French industrial service providing manufacturing capabilities to customers, including additive manufacturing. Unlike Sculpteo, 3D Prod provides full lifecycle capabilities, including design and production.
Sculpteo has operated in a more straightforward manner, allowing customers to upload 3D models and select from a wide range of 3D print technologies and materials to produce the required parts.
This seems to be a new beginning for Sculpteo, which has had quite the corporate experience over the past five or so years.
Initially a promising startup, founded by Clément Moreau, the company was one of the few known large 3D print services accessible to consumers and industry. As they grew more prominent, they were acquired by BASF in 2019.
At the time, BASF was all-in on additive manufacturing, seeing it as a possible route to generating huge additional sales of materials. They were acquiring all manner of companies and partnerships at the time.
Then things changed at BASF, and the company decided to divest itself of most additive operations. In 2024, the management of Forward AM (the BASF subsidiary operating most of the additive business) acquired Forward AM itself, including Sculpteo.
However, Sculpteo was never really in their plans, and thus it has now been acquired by another party, 3D Prod, leaving Forward AM to continue focusing on its target market.
From the press release, it is not entirely clear what 3D Prod intends to do with Sculpteo. However, they do say that by bringing the companies together, they now have a group with:
- 100 employees
- €17 million in combined revenue, with a target of €20 million by 2027
- More than 1,250,000 parts produced annually
- More than 7,000 corporate clients, from SMEs to large corporations
- Sectors covered: automotive, aerospace, healthcare, design, and industry.
- Two production sites: Vosges and Villejuif in the Île-de-France region, providing
- combined global coverage of 62 countries.
- One of the largest HP 3D printer fleets in the world.
This tells me one important thing: it could be about scale. While some mergers attempt to put complementary operations together to form something new that covers more capabilities, others are about scale. The more you have of the same thing, the more optimization and economies of scale can be achieved.
By having “one of the largest HP printer fleets”, they would have some considerable advantages. For example, their buying power would be strengthened, leading potentially to lower input costs. Automation solutions could be spread over many more machines, again lowering costs.
Somewhere in France, there is a spreadsheet that has figured all this out.
Via Sculpteo (PDF)
