Category Archives: Investment

Investing in 3D Printing

“Have you seen the price jumps of the 3D printing stocks? What are you long? You must have invested in some, right? Is 3D Systems the one to go with?”

3d printing wolf of wall street

Having some background in both 3D printing and finance, I hear these questions quite often. Well, at least I used to hear them. 3D printing stocks were the ‘pretty girl in class’ for the past year or so, until the 3D Systems (DDD) recently announced it’s preliminary results for the year 2013[1], which made the stock price plummet and set the market haywire.

Was it really a surprise?

The news, I mean. If you had studied 3D Systems more closely you would have noticed many things that normally would raise alarms in any investor’s mind. Without going into too much details[2] their growth strategy has been based on acquisitions, without actually selling too many of their own 3D printers. Their consumer focused 3D printer does not get much appraisal from the maker community.

3d-systems cube

So what has made theirs and other 3D printing stocks skyrocket? Is just a charismatic CEO (he really is) and effective marketing (it really is) enough? Could be, but it could also be that people are lazy to do their homework and just invest when it seems like the right time?

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3D Printing Industry partners up with Mediabistro to produce Inside 3D Printing trade shows

3D Printing Industry - Inside 3D Printing - Mediabistro copy

It’s official. After months of waiting and waiting the day is finally here. Mediabistro just announced their investment in 3D Printing Industry and that going further the two companies will be producing Inside 3D Printing worldwide trade show series together.

At 3D Printing Industry we obviously were waiting this quite anxiously and unfortunately it took longer than anticipated to get everything in order. Things in Asia can sometimes take time, but there’s no point going into details here. The developments are great and will strengthen our leading online media position in the 3D printing realm. The partnership makes perfect sense for both companies and the same model has worked wonders in the past for many.

In fact, it’s a bit of a funny story. When we first met Alan in April in New York he was explaining how he usually operates the trade shows and media partnerships. I mentioned to him that it sounded very much like the model used by Search Engine Land with SMX shows. Maybe I should have done my research better, as it was Alan’s original model that he had created for Search Engine Watch when it was still owned by Jupitermedia. Live and learn.

The times ahead are very exciting for us.

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gamesGRABR sourcing funding at CrowdCube

gamesGRABR

What pinterest did for wider audience, gamesGRABR is doing for people who love games. It’s THE social network for gamers. The idea is based on curating games collections, discovering, engaging, playing, sharing them with other gamers, and following the trends of the favorite games and players – across all game platforms.

gamesGRABR recently launched an equity crowdfunding campaign that aims to raise £150,000 in return of 7% equity. Things are looking good: so far they have raised £116,000 with 46 days to go. What makes the set up even more interesting is that after they reach the £150,000 an additional £200,000 will be added from their existing investors. The company raised £250,000 seed funding round earlier this year and have successfully developed and launched the website. If you are new to how crowdfunding works I wrote an article about it earlier.

In the past months have been working closely with gamesGRABR to support their online marketing and analytics. I am excited about the concept, and it has proven to raise attraction: 35% of the visitors are returning. They are making the desired actions on the website; playing, downloading and buying games.

The team is very knowledgeable and professional and I think the future for the project is looking very bright.

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What Are Crowdfunding Websites and How to Find Yours?

crowdfunding

Crowdfunding seems to have become more and more popular medium to source funding, as the number of such websites and funding niches grow. It all got started in it’s current form when kickstarter launched in 2009 to help artists, inventors and alike to make their ideas and products happen through small amounts of money gathered from individuals interested in the project. Since then Kickstarter has grown to be a very popular place to source funding: until today they have successfully gathered funding for over 50,000 projects worth total nearly $850M dollars[1]. Quite impressive, huh?

How do crowdfunding websites really work?

The basic concept is quite simple: a crowd of people all chip in their chosen amount to collectively gather the targeted sum of money defined by the project creator. Some sites require the project to reach target in order to the project to be funded. If not, the money is not taken from the pledgers’ accounts. The time to raise that money is usually limited.

There are various models what the investors get in return for their investment. In some cases it can be the actual product that the project is set to produce. It can also be equity of the company.

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