As America debates 3D printed guns, VCs make Formlabs a unicorn

Formlabs desktop 3D printer
Formlabs, a company building 3D printing systems for businesses, has brought in $15 million at a $1 billion valuation, securing it a spot in the unicorn club —a place where few 3D printing companies have gone before.

NEA has led the latest round for Formlabs, which was founded in 2011 by a team of engineers and designers from MIT Media Lab. The Somerville, MA-based company is also backed by Tyche Partners, which led its $30 million Series C in April, DFJ Growth, Foundry Group, Pitango Venture Capital, Shenzhen Capital Group and other investors.

As part of the funding, Jeff Immelt, former chairman and CEO of GE, is joining Formlabs' board of directors, which already includes Carl Bass, the former CEO of Autodesk. Immelt and GE have an established interest in the burgeoning 3D printing sector. Immelt has said in the past that 3D printing "is worth a lot of investment," and he has a spot on the board of Desktop Metal, a fellow 3D printing unicorn that specializes in metal and builds office-friendly 3D printers that don't require third-party equipment or special facilities.

Rounding out the list of 3D printing companies valued at north of $1 billion is Carbon, which uses its 3D printing technology to manufacture a range of products from medical devices to electronics to tennis shoes.

Carbon is backed by GE Ventures, the venture arm of GE that has previously provided support to Desktop Metal and 3D printing businesses Xometry and Optomec. Lux Capital, High-Tech Grunderfonds and North Bridge Venture Partners are also among the investors have also been active dealmakers in the 3D printing space since 2010. Global VC investment in 3D printing 3D printing is the process of laying down successive layers of material, plastic or metal, to create a three-dimensional solid object from a digital file. The technology can be used to create a number of different objects, including to build parts of prosthetics—that's how LIM Innovations has leveraged the technology. The auto industry also uses 3D printed materials as parts, tools and interior elements. Construction, aviation and aerospace businesses, among others, have also adopted the tech.

3D printers can even be used to create weapons, a use case that has made headlines in recent weeks. Downloadable blueprints for printing AR-15s and other firearms were expected to be made available online by Defense Distributed, an Austin, TX-based nonprofit founded by self-proclaimed "principled anarchist" Cody Wilson. Defense Distributed's 3D printer, the Ghost Gunner 2

On Tuesday, however, a federal judge in Seattle issued a temporary restraining order, halting the company from releasing the blueprints that allow users to print guns online using 3D printing technology, which would have made it possible to create weapons that don't have serial numbers without passing a background check. In making his ruling, the judge sided with several states that filed a lawsuit seeking to block a settlement the federal government reached with Defense Distributed earlier this year allowing the company to make the blueprints available. Wilson has told media outlets that barring him from releasing the blueprints violates his right to bear arms and his First Amendment right to share information freely.

While the adoption of 3D printers in professional environments has increased as a result of the emergence of B2B 3D printing startups like Formlabs, 3D printing is still far from mainstream consumer adoption. Particularly when it comes to at-home printing of weapons, the tech is not there yet. As it stands, printing a firearm using a 3D printer may be as dangerous for the person handling the weapon as it is for the potential target. That's because the plastic used to create the gun often isn't strong enough to handle the force of a deploying bullet and can explode upon releasing one.

But it's rapidly advancing technology, and, as Formlabs co-founder Max Lobovsky himself pointed out in a recent interview with The Guardian, it may be beneficial to craft policy surrounding 3D printing before it's too late.

“In 10 or 15 years, we’ll probably have a low-cost device that can produce fairly complete firearms or other weapons,” Lobovsky told The Guardian. “And maybe this is something our government’s policies should address today. But right now it’s so easy to acquire a gun that it doesn’t make sense to make one at home.”

Related read: Meet the unicorn class of 2018