Who Owns Formlabs?

Three MIT Media Lab students, Maxim Lobovsky, David Cranor, and Natan Linder, founded Formlabs in September 2011 to solve a specific problem: industrial stereolithography printers cost $100,000 or more, putting precision resin printing out of reach for most engineers, designers, and small manufacturers.

The company's launch vehicle was Kickstarter. The Form 1 campaign raised nearly $3 million in 2012, at the time one of the most successful hardware campaigns on the platform, and validated demand for a professional-quality printer under $3,500.

The Form 1 shipped in 2013, followed by the Form 1+, Form 2 (2015), and a steady cadence of upgrades that made the Form line the default desktop SLA printer in dental labs, engineering firms, and product design studios. Each generation improved speed, reliability, and the materials library, which grew into dozens of proprietary resins covering dental, medical, engineering, jewelry, and casting applications.

A parallel product line brought selective laser sintering to the desktop. The Fuse 1, launched in 2021 after years of development, priced nylon powder printing at roughly a tenth of traditional SLS systems, followed by the Fuse 1+ 30W. In June 2026, the company launched the Fuse X1, a large-format SLS system starting at $84,999 aimed at industrial production, claiming 50 percent lower cost per part than comparable systems.

The company's financial profile matured alongside its products. Formlabs disclosed for the first time in 2026 that 2025 revenue exceeded $250 million, with more than half coming from recurring materials sales, a free cash flow margin above 10 percent, and more than two years of sustained profitability. Customers have printed more than 500 million parts on 150,000 printers sold since founding.

Market intelligence firm CONTEXT credited Formlabs with the leading share of the professional price-class 3D printer category in 2025, capturing 38 percent of global hardware shipments.