Thank you Joe, excellent summary as usual. Having watched 3D printing for several years and still waiting for volume scale yet seeing nothing on the horizon, I have little faith this industry is ready for prime time high volume parts production at low prices. I see that Xometry and Protolabs though competitors, can coexist as one is essentially a broker while the other makes the parts using other people's equipment. The real winner, when the industry can scale up (if ever) likely to be equipment manufactures like DDD, DM etc with multiple revenue streams: 1. making and supplying the equipment 2. developing CAD tools and providing as a service: SAAS model 3. Consumables (very high margins) 4. service/parts/maintenance contracts 5. compete by manufacturing parts in-house for OEM using own machines and consumables
Appreciate the kind words! Xometry has had strong quarterly revenue growth consistently over time, so there's definitely some "there there." Interesting comment you make about the two firms coexisting. One wonders what they might look like after a merger. Agree with your thesis on 3DP machine manufacturers in theory. In practice, DM's margins are dismal. Haven't looked at DDD for a while so we'll add that to our research queue. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
My 5 cents, as I tried procurement through both platforms (European). Tried protolabs back in 2020 as it seemed like a really great Idea, also for cost feedback on my designs. The pricing was 3 times higher than my local vendor, in which the argued for the quick turn-round time for prototypes. In my case I gladly wait another 2-4 weeks for my parts if the cost could have been lower. Tried xometry about a month ago and the pricing was far more competitve, about 5-7% cheaper than my usual supplier. The options on the website was also better for choosing or specifying certain things. In the end I did ship the parts to my usual due to 1-2 of the parts being quite critical in terms of tolerances and so on. The slight premium seemed worth when comparing a website to an AS9100 manufacturer. My biggest issue is I do not trust the setup enough when it comes to precision manufacturing, especially when they do not do the manufacturing themselves. It is something I will likely try again in the future but the process gets complicated when it requires specific standards, materials, tempers and tolerances. In those cases I do prefer working with a technical sales person who looks through all of my drawing. - Mechanical Engineer in Aerospace Industry
This is very useful information, thank you for taking the time to tell us about your experiences. You are bringing up other factors that need to be considered when evaluating these two offerings. Your comment about trusting a supplier that does the manufacturing themselves speaks to our thesis about the advantages of a closed-loop system. Appreciate you sharing your experiences!
Joe, great content as usual! I have never heard of those companies before. I own Desktop Metal in the 3D sector, and I was thinking that HP and Xerox could be giants in 3D. Definitely, I do not think that it is the case.
Glad you enjoyed the piece! 3D printing has been one of those themes that hasn't exactly panned out. HP used to dabble in this space but not anymore that we're aware of. Not sure what Xerox is up to tbh. Neither firm would be considered a 3DP leader which means they both missed the boat.
Well-say, Joe! In the past, Xerox was the absolute reference for printing. Definitely, both are not on top of 3D printing disruptive technology. I own DM and NNDM in the sector.
Hi Joe, thanks for the great piece! Question: At the end of this video, you mentioned exiting your position when referring to Xometry, did you mean Protolabs?
I got Shapeways, high change a reverse stocksplit could be inbound but 29M marketcap, great branding and API for platforms and CMS systems like WordPress. The potential to become printify/printful of 3D printing and manufacturing. They did nothing desperate to try crack the stock price back up above 1 recent months. But are they are nearly ready with a new factory that could act as a catalyst too. What is your opinion about Shapeways?
_-Ars-_ those memes _longa, vita brevis._ Heh. At a 1-minute first glance, not so sure I'd be so quick to jettison PRLB for XMTR. Sure, you wanna buy growth, but at a reasonable price. XMTR sounds like a more variable cost-driven business than PRLB: they probably let affiliated jobbers bid on work (supposing) & can spread the pain of recent challenges better than PRLB. Otoh, PRLB is like a guild: they are developing a high level of organisational expertise in their field, invest more (fixed) in their business, & can make higher margins. Just looking naïvely at the Price to Tangible Book metric, we see PRLB at 2.5 & XMTR at 28. Assets underpin profitability, & represent the potential to react to a changing environment. XMTR management has a stretched balance sheet, & has fewer "levers" at their disposal to change course, while PRLB has just a wee bit more juice in the tank (though still not much). So I dunno. As a market participant whose fundamental thesis is that the USD is trash (looking very wrong today, but give the Fed a chance to become the doting uncle yet again), I consider the biggest, cheapest, most out-of-the-money pile of SPAC warrants to constitute the most sublime investment in any industry, so for 3D printing, I've been preferring the VLD warrants. Only good 'til Dec-25, but surely that's plenty of time for another J-Pow flip-flop, hey? It's a different business (VLD are manufacturers of 3DP systems), but yeah.
Here's the kicker. We're already in bed with both firms. The question is do we exit the low-growth dud or give it time to realize the master plan of $1 billion by 2026? Like your analogy of a guild. Dislike the idea of getting involved with SPAC warrants as those represent far too much complexity and risk. Yes, VLD is different business and we'd prefer Markforged out of that lot. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. You're always an enjoyable read.
"manufacturing bureau" what they really mean is "manufacturing broker"? Does Xometry have any machine tools, processes or engineers? NO Well gosh; what do they have then? Just some software which they are calling "AI powered market place for building big ideas" But really everyone else would call this just marketing BS for a "search engine". All we have here is just another "clever start up" that is attempting to LEVERAGE THE SERVICE OF OTHER COMPANIES and then claim to be an innovator.
If companies are willing to pay for the services they provide, and revenue growth is consistently growing over time, it leads us to believe that they've built something that other companies are willing to pay for. That said, be wary of business models where a company pays $1.50 for $1.00 in revenues.
We look at gross income as a measure of "possible profitability" when a company stops investing in growth. Usually high marketing spend propels growth and market share. Once leadership is established then less money can be spent on rapid growth. That's the idea anyway.
Thank you Joe, excellent summary as usual. Having watched 3D printing for several years and still waiting for volume scale yet seeing nothing on the horizon, I have little faith this industry is ready for prime time high volume parts production at low prices. I see that Xometry and Protolabs though competitors, can coexist as one is essentially a broker while the other makes the parts using other people's equipment. The real winner, when the industry can scale up (if ever) likely to be equipment manufactures like DDD, DM etc with multiple revenue streams:
1. making and supplying the equipment
2. developing CAD tools and providing as a service: SAAS model
3. Consumables (very high margins)
4. service/parts/maintenance contracts
5. compete by manufacturing parts in-house for OEM using own machines and consumables
Appreciate the kind words! Xometry has had strong quarterly revenue growth consistently over time, so there's definitely some "there there." Interesting comment you make about the two firms coexisting. One wonders what they might look like after a merger. Agree with your thesis on 3DP machine manufacturers in theory. In practice, DM's margins are dismal. Haven't looked at DDD for a while so we'll add that to our research queue. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
My 5 cents, as I tried procurement through both platforms (European).
Tried protolabs back in 2020 as it seemed like a really great Idea, also for cost feedback on my designs.
The pricing was 3 times higher than my local vendor, in which the argued for the quick turn-round time for prototypes. In my case I gladly wait another 2-4 weeks for my parts if the cost could have been lower.
Tried xometry about a month ago and the pricing was far more competitve, about 5-7% cheaper than my usual supplier. The options on the website was also better for choosing or specifying certain things. In the end I did ship the parts to my usual due to 1-2 of the parts being quite critical in terms of tolerances and so on. The slight premium seemed worth when comparing a website to an AS9100 manufacturer. My biggest issue is I do not trust the setup enough when it comes to precision manufacturing, especially when they do not do the manufacturing themselves.
It is something I will likely try again in the future but the process gets complicated when it requires specific standards, materials, tempers and tolerances.
In those cases I do prefer working with a technical sales person who looks through all of my drawing.
- Mechanical Engineer in Aerospace Industry
This is very useful information, thank you for taking the time to tell us about your experiences. You are bringing up other factors that need to be considered when evaluating these two offerings. Your comment about trusting a supplier that does the manufacturing themselves speaks to our thesis about the advantages of a closed-loop system. Appreciate you sharing your experiences!
@@joepiv I appreciate the content, the least I can do ;)
Keep it up
What do you think about the company with the share price falling significantly? Could they make the company successful again in the future?
We're working on a research piece addressing this.
Joe, great content as usual! I have never heard of those companies before. I own Desktop Metal in the 3D sector, and I was thinking that HP and Xerox could be giants in 3D. Definitely, I do not think that it is the case.
Glad you enjoyed the piece! 3D printing has been one of those themes that hasn't exactly panned out. HP used to dabble in this space but not anymore that we're aware of. Not sure what Xerox is up to tbh. Neither firm would be considered a 3DP leader which means they both missed the boat.
Well-say, Joe! In the past, Xerox was the absolute reference for printing. Definitely, both are not on top of 3D printing disruptive technology. I own DM and NNDM in the sector.
@@daniuskac1527 Here's a piece we did on NNDM th-cam.com/video/cIqVRNVdyJs/w-d-xo.html
Hi Joe, thanks for the great piece! Question: At the end of this video, you mentioned exiting your position when referring to Xometry, did you mean Protolabs?
I got Shapeways, high change a reverse stocksplit could be inbound but 29M marketcap, great branding and API for platforms and CMS systems like WordPress. The potential to become printify/printful of 3D printing and manufacturing.
They did nothing desperate to try crack the stock price back up above 1 recent months. But are they are nearly ready with a new factory that could act as a catalyst too.
What is your opinion about Shapeways?
Incoming: www.nanalyze.com/2021/04/long-protolabs-stock-not-shapeways-stock/
@@Nanalyze thank you!
The Xometry v Protolabs meme is an absolute riot. Actual LOL
;)
_-Ars-_ those memes _longa, vita brevis._ Heh. At a 1-minute first glance, not so sure I'd be so quick to jettison PRLB for XMTR. Sure, you wanna buy growth, but at a reasonable price. XMTR sounds like a more variable cost-driven business than PRLB: they probably let affiliated jobbers bid on work (supposing) & can spread the pain of recent challenges better than PRLB. Otoh, PRLB is like a guild: they are developing a high level of organisational expertise in their field, invest more (fixed) in their business, & can make higher margins.
Just looking naïvely at the Price to Tangible Book metric, we see PRLB at 2.5 & XMTR at 28. Assets underpin profitability, & represent the potential to react to a changing environment. XMTR management has a stretched balance sheet, & has fewer "levers" at their disposal to change course, while PRLB has just a wee bit more juice in the tank (though still not much).
So I dunno. As a market participant whose fundamental thesis is that the USD is trash (looking very wrong today, but give the Fed a chance to become the doting uncle yet again), I consider the biggest, cheapest, most out-of-the-money pile of SPAC warrants to constitute the most sublime investment in any industry, so for 3D printing, I've been preferring the VLD warrants. Only good 'til Dec-25, but surely that's plenty of time for another J-Pow flip-flop, hey? It's a different business (VLD are manufacturers of 3DP systems), but yeah.
Here's the kicker. We're already in bed with both firms. The question is do we exit the low-growth dud or give it time to realize the master plan of $1 billion by 2026? Like your analogy of a guild. Dislike the idea of getting involved with SPAC warrants as those represent far too much complexity and risk. Yes, VLD is different business and we'd prefer Markforged out of that lot. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. You're always an enjoyable read.
"manufacturing bureau" what they really mean is "manufacturing broker"?
Does Xometry have any machine tools, processes or engineers? NO
Well gosh; what do they have then?
Just some software which they are calling "AI powered market place for building big ideas"
But really everyone else would call this just marketing BS for a "search engine".
All we have here is just another "clever start up" that is attempting to LEVERAGE THE SERVICE OF OTHER COMPANIES and then claim to be an innovator.
If companies are willing to pay for the services they provide, and revenue growth is consistently growing over time, it leads us to believe that they've built something that other companies are willing to pay for. That said, be wary of business models where a company pays $1.50 for $1.00 in revenues.
How about "Net income" of Xometry? (instead of "Gross income") It's been in the RED zone all the time... Xometry seems to be keeping on losing $$$.
We look at gross income as a measure of "possible profitability" when a company stops investing in growth. Usually high marketing spend propels growth and market share. Once leadership is established then less money can be spent on rapid growth. That's the idea anyway.