botObjects acquired by 3D Systems and Rethink Robotics raises $26.6 million in Series D

botObjects cashes in on colorful innovation

On January 5, 3D Systems announced that they had acquired London-based botObjects, designers and manufacturers of the CubePro C, a color desktop 3D printer. When botObjects first announced the launch of their new printer in 2013, their claims of full-color 3D printing caused both excitement and disbelief in the additive manufacturing community. When the printer was finally revealed, botObject showed that it could achieve a color filament solution for PLA (plastic) extrusion using a five-color cartridge system. Each of the five filaments are a primary color (cyan, magenta, yellow, black and white) and by mixing in specific ratios (pre-deposition), the printer can print all the colors of the rainbow. It represents significant innovation beyond essentially open-source extrusion printing and is a good case study for value being created in the wake of Stratasys‘ original FDM patent expiration.