3D Systems

Well, when we started, after the board approval started the incubation of the business in BASF, we visited most of the large companies.

printer suppliers, system suppliers, including EOS for sure and 3D Systems and Stratasys and Opjet at that time and so on.

And we also visited the Chinese ones, not only Fasun, but also others.

And we found at that time it was very important for the business development that we have open systems.

And it helps also that your former boss, he used to work at DTM, right? He was like, and DTM, I still know a friend of mine, I swear, Brent, right? Who's been on the show before.

He just got new optics on a DTM machine a couple of weeks ago and he loves it, right? So I think this history of working for DTM, I think is a really, really exciting background to have, right?

Yeah, Fasun was founded by Dr. Xu while he was 17, no, 22 years he was in China, in the US states, in the states with his PhD, with study, with university and then entering the additive market in DTM and also being the technical director of 3D systems.

And he founded Fasun.

Well, good, good, because I have experienced heartbreaking loss.

um watching you know positions that i'd held that were of eight times in value and i'm selling them at a ninety percent loss 3d systems ticker symbol ddd would be a good example of that 3d printing company and as i've already mentioned you know we held amazon nvidia netflix through huge losses like netflix lost two-thirds of its value in six months And this is not uncommon for these kinds of companies.

So I want to make it clear that I don't want to make it sound easy or be glib on this point.

I recognize the heartbreak that I've experienced as an investor on the way to market beating returns.

the one that you said, oh, well, I've got something to take away from that?

Yeah, well, every one of them.

I would say really quickly, 3D Systems, I mentioned that earlier, was a bagger as 3D printing took a shine to people's portfolios and then all of a sudden showed that it was a mediocre lower margin company.

So an eight bagger that we ended up selling at a 90 percent loss.

it's going to be interesting to me too because um most companies just do not make profits selling hardware so if you have an open platform where you can get third-party materials or pellets you lose a lot of the profitability on that system sales or the consumables that come along with it so you know we'll see if these guys that are doing these kind of open platforms or pellets can uh you know make a profit uh selling just the hardware

all right 3d systems some big news

Yeah, definitely.

Just starting on the results first.

So hopefully we'll still be able to see Jeff at IMTS and Formnext.

I do think Jeff had a big job when he came into that company.

As we all know, 3D Systems was hugely accretive in their past.

And when Jeff came in, you know, he really tried to make it 3D only and he offloaded a lot of kind of non-essential assets, started doing some acquisitions, maybe some were good, some were bad.

The technology is now part of what is known as additive manufacturing, or aka 3D printing.

So Chuck's the founder of 3D Systems, Inc., and...

Like I said, it's gone from rapid prototyping to production parts and just exploded.

Still in its infancy in terms of real-world applications, but especially in dental and healthcare and aerospace and automotive.

Start a very good DMS machine.

Uh, I think Ruben at one point gave me a really small titanium bowl, uh, uh, back then I kept for years and years and layer wise was then sold to, uh, 3d systems.

And, uh, Ruben then worked at 3D Systems as a development manager of healthcare.

Then he went to FMI Instrument, which is a Dutch kind of medical instruments company.

Later, he returned to 3D Systems as director of the business development for the healthcare unit for a couple of years.

And now he's the CEO and co-founder of Amnovus.

And if you look at the people who work at Amnovus and the people behind it, you see a lot of the same kind of familiar Belgian faces as we're involved with layer-wise.